COMPARATIVE MERITS OF VACCINATION. 593 
necessary requisites for success being a very decided degree 
of technical skill, patience, and experience. The last objec¬ 
tion examined—and it is one which has hitherto been the 
principal obstacle to the introduction of animal vaccination 
into Great Britain—is, “that animal virus is expensive and 
difficult to obtain/’ If this be urged in comparison with the 
Jennerian method (arm-to-arm vaccination), no one can 
gainsay its validity. But we receive as true and weighty the 
advantages accompanying animal vaccination as urged by 
Dr. Martin, and which we feel by experience to be real, if we 
consider it to be of the highest importance that vaccination 
of the whole community should be done in the best way , and 
that it is a duty devolving on the government of every country 
to see this carried out, we cannot help regretting that in 
Britain, the birth place of the discovery of vaccination, there 
is still wanting the means of providing this prophylactic agent 
in its purity. Each wave of smallpox as it breaks over our 
country discloses the imperfect protection afforded by long- 
humanised vaccine even in the case of children under twelve 
years of age (although I have hitherto in vain endeavoured to 
obtain from the authorities of workhouse and other schools the 
statistics necessary to corroborate this). Each epidemic, if 
at all severe, is accompanied by a vaccine famine , notwith¬ 
standing the much-praised resources of the National Vaccine 
Institution of England; and in the weight of such epidemics 
we have numberless letters and dissertations published both 
by the lay and medical press drawing attention to the defects 
in our national vaccination arrangements. The recent debate 
in our House of Commons on Mr. Pease’s Bill afforded an 
excellent opportunity for advocating the establishment and 
support by our Government of institutions for the propaga¬ 
tion and supply of animal vaccine. For such services or 
stations, placed say in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and 
Dublin, would meet the want felt. Universal experience, 
sanctioned by Dr. Seaton and other authorities, proves that 
by the arm-to-arm method vaccine loses its power of in- 
oculabilitv and becomes otherwise altered. Hence the advice 
given to public vaccinators to change their source of lymph 
(the vaccinifer) when this is observed; but under such cir¬ 
cumstances a supply of animal vaccine would be most 
acceptable and, we believe, most advantageous. Those 
medical men and those of the public who desire vaccination 
from the heifer would thus have the opportunity. I trust, 
therefore, that Dr. Martin’s able advocacy of animal vaccina¬ 
tion will be followed by the introduction of this method under 
Government support both in this country and in America. 
lii. 42 
