The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-09-24
AN OPINION ON THE
VACCINATION LAW.
London Times Believes it Should
be Compulsory.
DANGERS OF SMALL POX.
DANGERS OF SMALL POX
Result of Investigation in Different English
Communities - What Might Have Been
Avoided-Total Indifference to Sanitary Re-
auirements-AdViee That Should be Taken.
(From the London Times.

The length of time consumed by the
Royal Commission on Vaccination in
dealing with questions as to which all
the materials necessary for arriving at
sound conclusions had for many years
been available to all who wished to
use them has been little short of a
public scandal, and has been indirectly
the cause of a smallpox mortality
which both could have been, and ought
to have been avoided.
Weakened or ignorant boards of
guardians have been terrorized by an
ti-vaccinators, and in many places have
permitted the law which they were
charged to administer to fall almost
completely into allegiance. In one To-
cality in which this state of things has
existed, the resulting epidemic has
come just in time to furnish the COM
missioners while engaged in consider
ing their report with a frightful ex
ample Of what would happen elsewhere
if neglect of vaccination were ever to
become general.
In the city of Gloucester, in the
early part of this year, it was fact
that scarcely any children who had
the age of ten, had been vaccinated;
and, as a consequence, in the three
months covered by the last quarterly
report of the Registrar-General, the
deaths from smallpox in the city were
PIT in number and amounted to an
annual rate of 81 for every thousand
persons living.
a hospital physician of conspicuous
ability has been employed by the COM
mission to visit Gloucester from time
to time during the continuance of the
epidemic, and it is probable that his
description of it's incidence and it's
decline will form not only a salient
feature of the general report, but also
a basis for conclusions of the highest
value in the interests of public safety.
We are at present necessarily unable
to give the actual decisions of the COM
missioners on any of the important
questions submitted to them, but the
rumOr that the report will be signed by
all of them except Mr.. Picton and DR..
Collins may, we think, be taken to be
conclusive with regard to its general
tendency, and to show that the conten-
-ions of the anti-vaccinators will de-
rive no support from it.
Sir Guyer Hunter and Mr.
have appended a memo
randum advising that not only vac
cination, but also revaccination, should
be rendered compulsory; while Mr..
Bright and Mr.. Whitebread object to
any form of compulsion, and think that
greater facilities should be given for
free vaccination, including visits by
the vaccinating officer to the homes of
the poor, and free medical attendance
in case of any injurious effects being
attributed to the operation.
1t would of course be impossible TO
criticise any such memoranda as those
above mentioned until they are before
us in detail, with any practical sug
gestions or qualifications which these
authors may have appended to them;
but it would appear certain, at first
sight, that revaccination, if strictly en-
forced, could not fail to extinguish
smallpox entirely and to leave it with
nothing but a place in history by the
side of the iaiI fever and the black |
1eath.
The argument for revaccination is
hat it is the only means of rendering
protection permanent; and that for |
;ompulsion is that the liberty claim
ID for the anti-vaccinator is productive |
If far-reaching disease and death, fall |
ng upon persons who have no share |
u his superstitions, and who yet cannot