UNSATISFACTORY VACCINATION.

952 proper dose of a drug. With them the fact of having been vaccinated confers immunity against small-pox, at least for a considerable period, but when the next wave of this disease passes over this country there may indeed, as Mr. Gaston observes, be a "rude awakening" for those who have some years previously been vaccinated in one place alone. It is quite true that such a vaccination confers protection for a time, but all evidence points to the fact that in order to confer adequate protection until revaccination is called for a scar of at least half a square inch should be produced and this scar is more easily and more safely procured by four separate insertions than by one. Those who practise this imperfect vaccination are likely to bring discredit upon the cause of vaccination and also upon themselves, and we should welcome some provision which would render such vaccination as this illegal. But the subject bristles with difficulties. In connexion with this subject of unsatisfactory vaccination we have received a communication from an American lady who has recently arrived in this country and who has had her child vaccinated in London. She alleges that the operation was performed with a domestic darningneedle which the medical practitioner did not sterilise or cleanse before using, and she asks if medical men generally vaccinate in such a careless way over here." We trust that UNSATISFACTORY VACCINATION. this lady’s experience is exceptional and that the practice THE Portsmouth Board of Guardians, and indeed Portsusually adopted is to wash the arm and to cleanse the instrumouth itself, have recently been much perturbed by certain ments in the manner laid down by the regulations of the revelations as to vaccination in their union, and they are Local Government Board in the case of public vaccinators. asking themselves whether, despite the fact that Portsmouth There is no excuse for careless vaccination. is, numerically speaking, a fairly well-vaccinated town, the population is not, qud the prevention of small-pox, living in THE PLAGUE AT SOUTHAMPTON. what they term a "fool’s paradise." This disquietude has THE following are the details respecting the case of been brought about by Mr. H. P. Gaston, a medical member of the board of guardians, who, at a recent meeting, moved, bubonic plague which is at present under observation at " The hospital ship Simla left Durban on That in view of the large number of children throughout Southampton. the country who are inefficiently vaccinated by private Feb. 16th with invalids for Southampton, calling at Cape practitioners (in Portsmouth it is officially estimated that Town on Feb. 18th to take a few additional passengers. they number more than 50 per cent.) this board petitions She arrived at Plymouth on March 12th, where it was the Local Government Board to take steps that in future that no infectious disease existed on board with legislation such practitioners be compelled to vaccinate reported the exception of two cases of enteric fever, one patient being up to the same standard of efficiency as the public officer who was landed at Plymouth, and the other a an and that the Poor-law Union Association, and vaccinator, all boards of guardians throughout England and Wales, be member of the crew, a laundryman, who on arrival at asked to join in the petition." Southampton on March 13th was removed to the isolation Mr. Gaston stated that out of an average of 4760 children hospital there. In consequence of the precautions taken by born annually in Portsmouth a little over 4000 per annum the Southampton sanitary authority to have the earliest had been vaccinated. Of this number 1200 had been intimation of any suspicious case which might occur in the vaccinated by the public vaccinator, 800 fairly efficiently district, the authorities of the South Hants Infirmary by private practitioners, and the remaining 2000 had, he had been requested to notify the medical officer of health alleged, been vaccinated in one place only. It is difficult should they receive into their hospital cases of glandular to know from what source Mr. Gaston has obtained these disease the cause of which could not be explained. On ngures as to vaccination in one place as no such return is Sunday, March 17th, the house surgeon informed Mr. A. W. required by the Vaccination Acts. But perhaps it is known Harris, the medical officer of health, that he had under that certain practitioners vaccinate in one place only, and his care a Lascar suffering from abscess in the inguinal that such practitioners havesigned some 2000 certificates region who had been admitted to the hospital for operation. annually. Mr. Gaston regards the one-place vaccination as Mr. Harris saw the patient without delay and upon not only dishonest but as a disgrace to the noble profession examination came to the conclusion, considering the to which he belongs, and he foresees for Portsmouth a whole of the surroundings and the history, that he -terrible awakening in the future. Mr. Gaston had evidently should be removed to the isolation hospital for further the sympathy of his audience, and the motion above inquiries. Suspecting that the case might prove to be referred to was carried unanimously. Although we are plague Mr. Harris subsequently had an interview with not prepared to accept the statistics here in question the ship’s surgeon, who informed him that the man without further evidence it is clear that Mr. Gaston has been was taken ill two days after leaving Cape Town. He instrumental in bringing to public notice in Portsmouth a had a temperature of 103’5°F. which afterwards diminished very weak point in the administrative procedure of vaccina- and then assumed a septicoamic character. During the tion. This much-to-be-deplored practice of vaccinating in early stage of his illness the man complained of a good deal -one place, and thus conveying a false sense of security to of pain and tenderness over the inguinal region. The vessel the person vaccinated, is one which all true friends of on her arrival at Cape Town had not been alongside any vaccination should unhesitatingly condemn. The public are quay or wharf, nor had the man in question been ashore. unable to differentiate between vaccinations any more than On the outward voyage of the Simla. however, the vessel they are in a position to know whether they are taking the had lain alongside the quays at Cape Town. The surgeon

have ubt gone into the question of the financial welfare of the small shopkeeper who would presumably be most affect 3d by such a measure as that to which we have called attention. We only suggest the test which should be applied to the individual clauses of Bills of this kind by the persons asked from time to time to pronounce upon them in Parliament. It might well be applied, for example, to such Bills as that to reduce the hours of miners to eight hours from bank to bank, an important change to which the House of Commons has already assented to the extent of allowing the Bill to be read a second time after a very brief discussion. The Bill dealing with the question of the early closing of shops introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Avebury is a very different measure from that which we have criticised above. It proposes to bring about the shortening of hours by the intervention of the local authority in districts and in respect of classes of shops with regard to which application shall have been made to the local authority in the manner which the Bill prescribes. It has been framed with a view to protect the health of shop assistants in those cases where it is liable to be endangered by long hours, and as such, in the experienced hands of Lord Avebury, deserves the serious consideration of Parliament.