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. Risk 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 
