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vaccination that offers itself in competition with public vaccina-,
tion, and which parades its inefficiency as a reason for its
acceptance by ignorant people. Its professors say to young
mothers, ' Do you come to me, and I won't hurt your baby;
I'll make only one place on its arm, not four, as those public
vaccinators do.' " It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that
although vaccination is done in about equal proportions by public
vaccinators and private practitioners, the proportion of deaths
from small-pox, among children under ten, is far greater among
the patients of private practitioners than among children taken
to public vaccinators ; and this, despite reasons, to which
Dr. Buchanan refers, which might fairly lead us to expect a
different result, were it not for the admittedly superior average
quality of public vaccination.
Here, then, we have a record of the " saving of 12,000
lives, by vaccination, to children under ten years of age " in the one
year, 1881, when the total mortality from small-pox did not
amount to one-third of the mortality in the epidemic of 1871 ; a
saving of life, justly, I believe, attributed to the operation of the
Vaccination Acts of 1867 and 1871. It only needs further to be
mentioned that in the " two periods of ten years immediately
preceding 1871, 59 and 54 per cent., or more than half of the
total small-pox mortality, was borne by children under five years
old," whilst " now, only 28 per cent, little more than a quarter of
the total small-pox mortality, falls upon such children," a clear
indication of the greater success with which the law of compulsory
vaccination is now carried out.
Animal Vaccination; Calf Lymph.—An objection to "armto-arm
" vaccination is based on the fact that, as the lymph is
passed through the human system, it may become the means of
transmitting enthetic disease. This danger, however, though by
no means to be disregarded, appears to be slight, and in practice
almost inappreciable, seeing that Dr. Buchanan states that he
" cannot learn of communication of syphilis in vaccination being
actually effected once in a million of vaccinations." Nevertheless,
and it being desirable to remove every impediment to the