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should see the case on the eighth day after the operation has been performed,
and, if successful, give to each patient a certificate to that effect.
As many parents will not bring their children for inspection to a privato
medical practitioner on the eighth day after vaccination, then, in all such
cases, the patient ought to be seen by the vaccinator at the residence of the
parents. Unless the patients are duly inspected after vaccination many cases
of imperfect vaccination are likely to occur. I know from my own experience,
that many children who have been vaccinated are not adequately protected
from small pox.
It is most satisfactory to find that the Privy Council has taken the
very best course to obtain for all classes a more efficient way for
their protection against small-pox by limiting the number of vaccinators so
that an adequate supply of good lymph may be kept up for distribution to
medical practitioners, who wish to vaccinate their private patients, and
where persons, living in the district assigned to a public vaccinator, may
take their children for vaccination, and there have the operation performed
with lymph taken direct from the arm of a healthy child.
It is, however, a question, and one well worthy of consideration,
whether it would not be better to have two vaccine stations in a district so
populous as that of Whitechapel, but if there should be two such stations there
should be only one vaccinator, who should set apart two days instead of as
at present only one, for the purpose of vaccinating the children residing in
the district. It is also a question how far it might be desirable to appoint
one vaccinator who should not be engaged in private practice, and pay him
such a salary as would ensure to more than one Union, the entire services of
an efficient officer. Such an arrangement would remove all feeling of
jealousy so often expressed by medical men in respect to their patients being
vaccinated by the public vaccinator, who, like themselves, is engaged in
private practice.
It is doubtless attended with inconvenience to many parents to carry
their children any considerable distance from their homes for vaccination and
for subsequent inspection.
In order to meet the exigences of the present outbreak of small-pox the
Guardians have provided a detached building for the reception of cases of
this disease, and they have appointed an officer to visit the localities where
small-pox prevails with a view of ascertaining whether all the children in
the infected neighbourhoods have been vaccinated or otherwise, and of compelling
the parents of unvaccinated children to have them forthwith
vaccinated under the penalty of a prosecution.
The two Inspectors to this Board likewise visit every house where a case
of small-pox has occurred, and when practicable disinfect the rooms, and
give such instructions as will tend to prevent the spreading of the disease ;
and they are further required to take down the names of all "unvaccinated
children in the localities they visit and transmit the same to the Clerk of the
Guardians.