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ignorant. Those opposed to vaccination are accustomed to
cite the experience of one large non-vaccinating town which
has succeeded during many years in warding off an epidemic,
although local outbreaks, from imported cases, have occurred
from time to time. But even in the case of Leicester, the
town referred to, immunity from small-pox has been largely
secured by vaccination. The Sanitary Authority of that town
has not only been diligent in searching-out, and isolating in
hospital, every case of small-pox, quarantining and compensating
the persons exposed to infection, but the doctors, the nurses,
and the other officials of the hospital (and even, it is alleged,
the members of the Sanitary or Hospital Committee themselves),
are protected by vaccination and re-vaccination. It
can hardly be doubted, however, that a time will come when
all the admirable precautions taken at Leicester will prove
unavailing, and that its rulers will have cause to regret their
disregard of Jenner's beneficent discovery, which, with a
minimum of risk, and this avoidable by the use of calflymph,
has conferred incalculable benefit on every civilized
community in the world, and just in proportion to the
efficiency with which it has been applied. Lamentable as is
the decision of the Commission, it is the more surprising, if it
be true, as alleged, that whilst much evidence had been heard
on the anti-vaccinators' side against vaccination-administration,
the administrators themselves had riot been heard when
the decision was arrived at. It would seem indeed, that the
majority yielded to the minority, and accepted a compromise
on a matter which, in the best interests of the community,
does not properly admit of compromise.
Animal Vaccination: Calf-Lymph;—An objection to
"arm-to-arm" vaccination has been 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,