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In our opinion the retention of compulsion in any form will in
the future cause irritation and hostility of the same kind.
The right of the parent on grounds of conscience to refuse
vaccination for his child being conceded, and the offer of vaccination
under improved conditions being made at the home of the
child, it would in our opinion be best to leave the parent free to
accept or reject this offer.
The Commission held 136 meetings for the examination of
witnesses, and examined 187 witnesses.
They caused also several important investigations to be
made especially in regard to local outbreaks of small-pox,
e.g., in London, Warrington and Gloucester, and cases of
alleged injury arising from vaccination, and came to the
following conclusions :—
(.4.) As to the effect of vaccination in reducing the prevalence
of, and mortality from, smalt-pox.
1. That it diminishes the liability to be attacked by the disease.
2. That it modifies the character of the disease, and renders it
(a) less fatal, and (6) of a milder or less severe type.
3. That the protection it affords against attacks of the disease
is greatest during the years immediately succeeding the operation
of vaccination. It is impossible to fix with precision the length
of this period of highest protection. Though not in all cases
the same, if a period is to be fixed, it might, we think, fairly be
said to cover in general a period of nine or ten years.
4. That after the lapse of the period of highest protective
potency, the efficacy of vaccination to protect against attack
rapidly diminishes, but that it is still considerable in the next
quinquennium, and possibly never altogether ceases.
5. That its power to modify the character of the disease is also
greatest in the period in which its power to protect from attack
is greatest, but that its power thus to modify the disease does
not diminish as rapidly as its protective influence against attacks,
and its efficacy during the later periods of life to modify the
disease is still very considerable.
6. That re-vaccination restores the protection which lapse of
time has diminished, but the evidence shows that this protection
again diminishes, and that, to ensure the highest degree of protection
which vaccination can give, the operation should be at
intervals repeated.
7. That the beneficial effects of vaccination are most experienced
by those in whose case it has been most thorough. We
think it may fairly be concluded that where the vaccine matter
is inserted in three or four places, it is more effectual than when
introduced into one or two places only—and that if the vaccination
marks are of an area of half a square inch, they indicate a
better state of protection than if their area be at all considerably
below this.