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vaccinating as will ensure plenty of healthy subjects from whom to select
the best possible lymph. This kind of vaccination is also by far the most
popular with parents, and in practice it is found that they will take no little
trouble to obtain its advantages for their infants. A first-class station,
then, which must be frequented by at least 500 persons a year, cannot be
maintained unless there is a population of from 25 to 30 thousand to supply
the requisite number of children. It is very important that as the number
of stations is reduced, their positions should be fixed as nearly in the centre
of the district as possible, so that no one in the Parish will live at a great
distance from a Vaccine Station.
There is an attempt in the New Act to render the registration of vaccination
much more complete than it has hitherto been. The duty of seeing
that the vaccination is registered is imposed on the public vaccinators in all
the cases which they vaccinate; but when the child is vaccinated by private
medical men, the duty of registration is thrown on the parent. The Registrars
are required to present to the Board of Guardians, half-yearly, a hst of
all parents respecting the vaccination of whose children the proper certificate
has not been received; and the Guardians are then required to inquire into
the circumstances of the cases, and in cases of default, to take proceedings
against the offending parties.
If the Guardians carry out the provisions of the Vaccination Acts as
efficiently as they have been carrying out the provisions of the Metropolitan
Poor Law Act, there is no doubt that such a mortality from Small Pox as
was recorded in the death-registers of 1867 and 1863 will not continue to be
met with.