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42
efficient sanitary authority, combined with enlightened
public opinion, to crush it out of existence, and that
is Small Pox. It will be seen that in fourteen years
there have been forty-seven fatal cases of this
disease. In proportion to our population we have
suffered less than most of the other parishes of
London during the last ten years. At the same
time we ought not to have suffered even to the
limited extent exhibited by these forty-seven cases.
It is well known that the communication of cow pox
by means of vaccination is a certain means of preventing
small pox, and it is questionable whether
small pox could ever be propagated by exclusively
vaccinated persons. It is a fact that there is
always a large number of persons in this country
who have not been vaccinated, and it is by means of
this unvaccinated leaven that the disease is kept up,
and every now and then spreads in all directions.
Although our legislature has passed several Vaccination
Acts, making it compulsory for all persons to be
vaccinated, this law is still so defective that large
numbers of persons escape vaccination. In the first
place, it is accompanied with no Act requiring the
registration of new-born children, and therefore it is
impossible for the public vaccinator to discover the
unvaccinated children. In the next place, the remuneration
given to public vaccinators is so small that