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to produce the disease in the calf by the use of humanized lymph.
The object the Government have in view is the same as in respect
of humanized lymph, viz., to supply medical practitioners with
''stock'' lymph to enable them to start a series of vaccinations, leaving
them to keep up their supplies, if they can, afterwards. Presumably,
facilities will be given to enable persons who object to the use of
humanized lymph to have their children vaccinated with calf lymph.
It may be mentioned that the use of animal lymph is common on the
Continent, and the system has been carried to great perfection at
Brussels under the direction of M. Warlomont, who sends supplies
to this country regularly, and whose tabes of lymph and charged
ivory points can be purchased at a moderate rate. A station,
moreover, has been established by a private medical practitioner
in the Marylebone Road, where persons can be vaccinated
direct from the calf. It is to be hoped, therefore, that so
much having been done to remove possibly reasonable objections,
the agitation promoted by anti-vaccinators will gradually dimmish,
if not completely subside.
The Government Vaccination Bill.—In connexion with the
subject of vaccination, reference must be made to a retrograde step
by the Government, which, if it had taken effect, might have led to
small-pox becoming a common disease in the future, as it was in
the now-distant past. It was a proposed concession to the antivaccinationists,
in the form of a Bill (" Vaccination Acts Amendment
Act") to enact that "no parent of a child shall be liable to be convicted
for neglecting to take, or to cause to be taken, such child to
be vaccinated, or for disobedience to any order directing such child
to be vaccinated, if either (a) he has been previously adjudged to
pay the full penalty of twenty shillings for any of such offences with
respect of such child; or (b) he has been previously twice adjudged
to pay any penalty for any of such offences in respect of such child."
Had this Bill became law, any parent who objected to vaccination
would have been enabled, at the cost of a few shillings, to escape
the performance of what is by most reasonable persons regarded as
a duty equally owing to society at large and to his own offspring.
Under the existing law penalties are multiple, i.e., a parent may be
fined again and again (inter alia) for neglecting to have his child