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144
ON THE SANITARY CONDITION OF
that body desired first to have an opportunity of considering the
report of the Royal Commission which was shortly after presented.
After sitting and taking evidence for seven years, the Royal
Commission presented a lengthy report affirming the beneficial
action of vaccination as a protection against small-pox, recommending
that calf-lymph should be available, that vaccination be
performed at the parents' houses, instead of at central stations,
and that the age within which vaccination is made obligatory,
should be six months as in Scotland. Dealing with the question
of what means other than vaccination can be used for diminishing
the prevalence of small-pox, and how far such means could be
relied on in place of vaccination, the report says: —
"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 hos"pital
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 in diminishing the prevalence of small-pox.
"It would be necessary, however, to bear constantly in mind as
"two conditions of success: first, that no considerable number of
"small-pox patients should ever be kept together in a hospital
"situate in a populous neighbourhood ; and, secondly, that the
"ambulance arrangement should be organised with scrupulous
"care. If these conditions were not fulfilled the effect might be
"to neutralise, or even do more than counteract, the benefits
"otherwise flowing from a scheme of isolation."
The Commissioners while recognising what a system of
isolation can accomplish as an auxiliary, see nothing to warrant
the conclusion that it could be relied on in place of vaccination.
Mortuaries in the District.
During the year, the number of dead bodies received into the
mortuaries in the Strand District were as follows:—