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delivers to the Vaccination Officer for the district a certificate
by such Justices or Magistrate of such conscientious objection.
The Section came into operation on the passing of the Act, i.e.,
the 12th August, 1898, but in its application to a child born
before the passing of the Act there was substituted for the
period of four months from the birth of the child the period of
four months from the passing of the Act.
A Parliamentary Return (No. 89, H. C., Session 1899)
showed that between the date of the passing of the Act and
the 31st December, 1898, the number of certificates of
conscientious objection received by the Vaccination Officers
was 203,413, and that the number of children to whom such
certificates related was 230,147.
The increases in the numbers of vaccinations for the halfyears
of 1899 as compared with the corresponding half-years of
1898, were 77,713 and 91,322 respectively, a total increase for
the year of 169,035, or 33 8 per cent.
The number of births registered in England and Wales
during 1898 was 923,265, and during 1899 was 928,640. The
ratios per cent. of successful primary vaccinations to births
registered were 54.2 in 1898 and 72.1 in 1899, an increase in
ratio of 33 per cent, in 1899 as compared with 1898.
Remarks on Infectious Diseases.
It is again necessary to note the incidence of infectious cases
occurring in Government Buildings, chiefly in Barracks or
Married Soldiers' Quarters, in which, this year as last, the
special incidence of Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria call for notice;
but whilst last year's number of cases represented 15 per cent,
of those occurring in Wards I. and II. St. Margaret's, the
percentage during 1900 has risen to 23. In one house in
York-street five cases of Scarlet Fever and in another three
cases of Diphtheria occurred, and in each instance it was
reasonable to assume that the cases were the result of direct
infection from the initial cases prior to their notification.
During the year attention has been called to the danger of
disseminating contagion through the medium of dust impurities
in public conveyances and places of public resort. Professor
Hamilton has recorded the results of a research on the
bacteriological impurities of dust in railway carriages. By
inoculation experiments, he ascertained that 16.6 per cent. of
his samples of dust, that is, two samples out of 12, contained