146 NATURAL SCIENCE [September 



the acute disease in its unmitigated form. The recognition of 

 the fact that vaccinia is merely attenuated small-pox — proved now 

 again and again — only brings vaccination into line with what we 

 know of other protective inoculations. 



There is, on the other hand, a certain price to be paid for the 

 protection afforded by vaccination. It is the exaggeration of this 

 price which forms the stock-in-trade of anti- vaccinators. The con- 

 ceivable risks of vaccination are : (1) the constitutional disturbance 

 produced by even an attenuated specific disease in a weakly child ; 

 (2) the introduction of some other disease from the vaccinifer in 

 arm-to-arm vaccination ; (3) the introduction of pyogenic cocci, 

 normally present in all lymph, and notably in calf-lymph ; and (4) 

 the risks attending every scratch on the skin, especially when the 

 recipient of the scratch lives under insanitary conditions. Of the 

 above risks, No. 1 is already largely met by the medical postpone- 

 ment of vaccination in unsuitable cases : it is an infinitesimal risk, 

 but it exists. No. 2, as vaccino-syphilis, is the prop and stay of 

 every anti-vaccinator : authentic cases of this accident are on record, 

 though every medical man knows that the vast majority of supposed 

 cases are in reality examples of congenital syphilis, manifesting 

 itself, as it commonly does, about the time when vaccination has to 

 be performed — the latter serving as a convenient scape-goat for 

 parental sins. This risk is abolished absolutely by the proposed 

 use of calf lymph only. No. 3 is probably an imaginary risk : an 

 exhaustive study of the matter in Germany shows that the course of 

 vaccinia is little, if at all, influenced by the presence of pyococci. 

 In any case the use of glycerinated lymph will abolish what risk 

 exists. There is a strong presumption, based on the observations of 

 Klein, and later on those of Copeman, that the specific virus of 

 small-pox and vaccinia is a spore-bearing bacillus. It has been 

 shown by German observers, and in this country especially by the 

 elaborate researches of Copeman, that, by the admixture of vaccine 

 lymph with diluted glycerine, adventitious organisms are gradually 

 killed off — the more resistant vaccinia virus, presumably in spore 

 form, remaining alone, but retaining its full potency. Such glycerin- 

 ated lymph may already be obtained in the market, sterile to 

 ordinary bacteriological cultivation, and it is such lymph that the 

 State proposes to offer. Bisk No. 4 is untouched by the present 

 bill : it is a question of ordinary cleanliness. Erysipelas may follow 

 an almost microscopic lesion of the epidermis. In practical life 

 we despise such risks, and we can afford to do so. 



Even as matters stand under the present laws, the mortality 

 from vaccination is exceedingly minute. Compared with the 

 enormous infant mortality from small-pox in the pre-vaccination 

 era it is infinitesimal. With the introduction of glycerinated calf 



