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4. Whether any, and, if so, what means should be adopted
for preventing or lessening the ill effects, if any, resulting from
vaccination ; and, whether, and, if so, by what means, vaccination
with animal vaccine should be further facilitated as a part
of public vaccination.
5. Whether any alterations should be made in the arrangements
and proceedings for securing the performance of
vaccination, and, in particular, in the provisions of the
Vaccinations Acts with respect to prosecutions for noncompliance
with the Law.
Of these issues the first and third are the most important. In
reply to the first question the Commission sum up as follows :—
In reply to No. 1
We think :—
1. That it diminishes the liability to be attacked by the disease.
2. That it modifies the character of the disease, and renders it (a) less
fatal, and (b) of a milder or less severe type.
3 That the protection it affords against attacks of the disease is greatest
during the years immediately succeeding the operation of Vaccination,
It is impossible to fix with precision the length of this period of
highest protection. Though not in all cases the same, if a period is
to be fixed, it might, we think, fairly be said to cover in general a
period of nine or ten years.
4. That after the lapse of the period of highest protective potency, the
efficacy of vaccination to protect against attack rapidly diminishes,
but that it is still considerable in the next quinquennium, and possibly
never altogether ceases.
5. That its power to modify the character of the disease is also greatest in
the period in which its power to protect from attack is greatest, but
that its power thus to modify the disease does not diminish as rapidly
as its protective influence against attacks, and its efficacy during the
later periods of life to modify the disease is still very considerable.
6. That re-vaccination restores the protection which lapse of time has
diminished, but the evidence shows that this protection again
diminishes, and that, to ensure the highest degree of protection which
vaccination can give, the operation should be at intervals repeated.
7. That the beneficial effects of vaccination are most experienced by those
in whose case it has been most thorough. We think it may fairly be
concluded that where the vaccine matter is inserted in three or four
places, it is more effectual than when introduced into one or two places
only—and that if the vaccination marks are of an area of half a square
inch, they indicate a better state of protection than if their area be
at all considerably below this.