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of vaccination when they have no fear of small-pox, very
commonly hasten to secure its protection when the disease is
prevalent. This applies most, perhaps, in the case of the
well-informed among the so-called "anti-vaccinators," the
brunt of the epidemic usually falling on the poor and
ignorant. The opponents of vaccination are wont to cite the
experience of one large non-vaccinating town which has
succeeded, more or less, during many years, in warding off an
epidemic, although local outbreaks, from imported cases, have
occurred from time to time, despite the fact that the
disease has caused great anxiety for many months past.
But even in the case of Leicester, the town referred to, such
immunity from small-pox as it has enjoyed, has been largely
secured by vaccination. The Sanitary Authority of that
town has been diligent, not only in searching out, and isolating
in hospital, every case of small-pox (even at the risk, as
in 1893, of spreading scarlet fever by refusing admission to
hospital of cases of the disease), but also by quarantining and
compensating the persons exposed to infection. Moreover, the
doctors, the nurses, and the other members of the hospital
staff (and even, it is alleged, the members of the Sanitary or
Hospital Committee themselves) are protected by vaccination
and re-vaccination. It can hardly be doubted, however
that a time will come when all the admirable precautions
taken at Leicester will prove unavailing, and that its rulers
will have cause to regret their disregard of Jenner's beneficent
discovery, which, with a minimum of risk, and this
avoidable by the use of calf-lymph, has conferred incalculable
benefits on every civilized community in the world, and this
just in proportion to the efficiency with which the operation
is carried out. Lamentable as is the decision of the Commission,
it is the more surprising, if it be true, as alleged,
that whilst much evidence had been heard on the antivaccinators'
side against vaccination-administration, the
adminstrators themselves had not been heard when the