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6
The method of procedure under the " Conscience
Clause " is too well known to require any comment.
For the first four months after the passing of the Act
the certificate might be obtained for a child of any
age, but now, only within four months of the birth of
the child.
Provision is made against repeated penalties. A
person imprisoned for non-compliance with the
Vaccination Act must be treated as a first-class
misdemeanant.
The Act is to continue in operation for five years,
till the 1st January, 1904.
In April, 1898, was issued the Report of the Royal
Commission on Tuberculosis, appointed to enquire into the
administrative procedures for controlling danger to man
through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous
animals.
On pages 26—28 I give an abstract of the recommendations
of this Royal Commission.
Although sanitary improvements have already done
much, there are still about 60,000 deaths annually in England
and Wales from consumption and other forms of tuberculosis,
such as consumption of the bowels, or tabes mesenterica,
diseases of the brain, glands, bones, and joints, the latter
leading to hump-back, hip-joint disease, and other deformities.
It is now known that '' this terrible waste of life, with all
the protracted suffering attending it, and the distress, moral
and material, which it involves, is in great measure preventable."
I am, therefore, very glad that during the year much