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Vaccination Officers, and 127 as having made such appointments,
there being no report on the point as to the remaining
12 Unions (Appendix No. 15 to the Committee's Report);
and in May, 1871, Dr. Seaton informed the Committee that
there were still a great many Unions in which Vaccination
Officers had not been appointed (Question 5,499).
In 1871 the Act of 1867 was amended by making the
appointment of paid Vaccination Officers compulsory in all
Unions, by simplifying and improving the arrangements for
the registration of vaccination, and in other ways. The
effect of the amending Act towards increasing the spread of
vaccination would be thus more marked in Unions where the
power to appoint paid Vaccination Officers had not before its
enactment been exercised ; but the amendment of the law
as to the registration of vaccination was such as to render it,
in every Union, less likely that the obligation to be vaccinated
would be evaded.
The records kept under the Vaccination Act of 1871, and
tabulated by the Local Government Board, show the amount of
primary vaccination performed within a certain period of birth,
of children whose births were registered in England or Wales
during the years 1872-1893. The following table gives the
figures:—