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In every instance the accommodation provided has been greatly appreciated,
and no difficulty has arisen from the conduct of those admitted.
Under the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the local
authority are bound to provide shelter and accommodation for persons
temporarily dispossessed of their houses during disinfection after cases of
infection have occurred therein. The question as to whether the provision
of food for the inmates of a shelter was obligatory was an open one until the
Local Government Board recently decided it in the affirmative. In this
connection it is well to state that both the Corporation of London and the
late Commissioners of Sewers had from the first establishment of their Shelter
taken a liberal interpretation of the wording of the Act and supplied food
for those accommodated.
SMALL-POX.
Small-pox has for so long been practically absent from London that the
necessity of vaccination and re-vaccination as a means of obtaining immunity
has not unnaturally been lost sight of, with the result that a large proportion
of our population—practically one-third—were absolutely unprotected even
in infancy. There can be but little doubt, moreover, that the effect of the
recent Vaccination Act, with its "Conscientious Objector" Clause, tended
greatly to this neglect of reasonable precaution. It was felt by many that
the Government of the day must have had weighty reasons for allowing a
person to evade the vaccination of his children on so flimsy a pretext, and
that if the Legislature were in doubt as to the value of this protection, the
individual had a right to his own opinion on the subject, and to base his action
thereon. Doubtless there were other considerations to account for the course the
Government took, but unfortunately these were mainly political, and in no sense
scientific, or in accordance with the generally received opinion of the medical
profession. Happily the experiment is fixed for a certain definite period of
time, and the experience so far gained is not likely to lead to its extension.
There are several points, however, with regard to vaccination which still
require urgent attention.
Firstly.—It is not sufficient that primary vaccination of every child should
be insisted upon within the first few months of its life; provision must also
be made for re-vaccination at the age of puberty.
No reasonable person can deny the effect of primary vaccination during
early childhood, but this rapidly tends to diminish after the age of 10—12,
and thus, as will shortly be shown, the actual result of vaccination has been
to transfer the incidence of Small-pox from an early to a later age. At this
period it is essential that the individual be again protected.