View report page

75
So long as the state, with a view to the public interest,
compels the vaccination of children, so long even as it errlploys
public money in promoting and encouraging the practice, we
think it is under an obligation to provide that the means of
obtaining calf-lymph for the purpose of vaccination should be
within reach of all. We have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending
that steps should be taken to secure this result. Whether
the duty of providing calf-lymph should be undertaken by the
Local Government Boards in the several parts of the United
Kingdom, or whether some other method would be more
advantageous, can be better determined by those who have had
practical acquaintance with the wqrking of the vaccination laws.
In connection with this subject, our attention has heen drawn
to the experiments recently made by Dr. Copeman as to the effect
of the storage of vaccine lymph in glycerine. The conclusions at
which he arrives are that the addition of glycerine, whilst it leaves
the efficacy of the lymph undiminished or even increases it, tends
to destroy other organisms. If it be the fact that the efficacy of
the lymph remains unimpaired, its storage in glycerine would
largely diminish the difficulties connected with the use of calflymph,
which are inseparable from calf to arm vaccination.
If lymph is to be preserved in glycerine, due care would be
requisite to ensure its purity and the absence of contamination in
its introduction. We think that, whether mixed with glycerine
or not, each tube should contain only sufficient lymph for the
vaccination of one person.
We have no difficulty in answering the question, what means
other than vaccination can be used for diminishing the prevalence
of Small-Pox ? We think that a complete system of notification
of the disease, accompanied by an immediate hospital isolation of
the persons attacked, together with a careful supervision, or, if
possible, isolation for sixteen days of those who had been in
immediate contact with them, could not but be of very high value