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43
or a public vaccinator, it is enacted that a certificate
shall be given and that such certificate shall be forwarded
to the registrar of the district in which the child's birth
had been previously registered. If the vaccination has
been performed by a public vaccinator, the Act enjoins
that that public officer shall himself forward his certificate
to the registrar; on the other hand, if performed by a
private practitioner, such as the parents' or guardians'
usual medical attendant, the responsibility is made to rest on
such parent or guardian to execute that duty. As, however,
the certificate can legally be sent to the registrar by post,
unpaid, no difficulty need arise upon this point, indeed it
. is tolerably certain that none will arise if the penal clauses
of the measure are more rigidly enforced than have been
those of former Acts. If they are not enforced it is almost
needless to say the new Act will not only be entirely
useless, but positively mischievous.
Fever, its gradual decline, and diminishing fatality.—
It is most satisfactory to find that the Sub-district continues
free from epidemic fever. Nothing, it is believed,
admits of clearer demonstration than that sanitation,
particularly the carrying out of an improved system of
sewerage, has done much to fortify the parish against
invasion by a malady formerly much too prevalent and
fatal.
There have been years in which as many as 40 cases of
Fever of a decided typhoid character have been treated by
the District Medical Officer of the Union, with the residt
of from 6 to 8 deaths, but during the past two years, and
since the town portion of the main drainage has been in
full operation in connexion with the great intercepting
sewer, scarcely a case of this disease amongst the poor has
even required treatment. One death due to Fever, it is
true, is recorded as having taken place amongst the Union
poor in the past year; but this case could be scarcely
viewed as being other than a puerperal fever, supervening,
as it did, upon difficult and dangerous parturition. It is
submitted that such persons as persistently declare, and