The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 595, 6 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1871.

" For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do."

ilt is time that the question of the practice of vaccination should receive soc»e practical solution. Erom the report of the Public Yaccinator, recently presented to the Provincial Co.uncilj it is evident that vaccination in the province is so little practised that it affords no protection against a general spread of small-pox, if ever that deadly pestilence effects a footing on our shores. It appears that in the five months during which the present Public Vaccinator has held office, only twenty seven children have been subjected to vaccination at his hands. Making all allowance for the numbers that may ' have been vaccinated by other medical practitioners, the proportion of the juvenile population added to our census who have beeu protected against variola by the great specific is singularly small. What may be the cause of this the report does not make particularly clear; for the reason assigned by the present incumbent is not very conclusive. He says: —" It will be remembered that the ! functions of Public Vaccinator almost fell into desuetude in the hands of my predecessor, and parents are only gradually - becoming acquainted with the inattention the appointed official, and. showing their anxiety to avail themselves of his services." It is all very well to take the opportunity of having a shot at another medical practitioner; but it seems to .us that, if the former vaccinator neglected his duties, there should be more unvaccinated children awaiting the efforts of his more energetic successor, and, consequently, the numbers in the present return for five months should be considerably beyond the infinitesimal number of twenty-seven. With all deference to the opinion of Dr. Nicholson, we think that the paucity of applicants for vaccination is to a large extent owing to a general fear, whether well or ill founded, of arm-to-arm inoculation. The Public Vaccinator says in his report:—" The repugnance to vaccination by human lymph, said by some to be almost universal in this district, has either been very greatly exaggerated or has been almost entirely removed. I have met with only one instance of refusal to have the operation performed on the ground that the lymph had not been taken direct from the animal." We confess we cannot see on what grounds Dr. Nicholson has arrived at this conclusion. In the fact of having met with only one refusal among twenty-eight parents with unvaccinated children, there is very little reason for the general assertion, especially when it may be supposed that the twenty-seven came voluntarily to the surgery, anxious to have their children vaccinated. These twenty-seven parents may be regarded as those of the community who have no timidity whatever on the subject; while the one protester, against whom Dr. Nicholson stumbled, is but a straggler on the outskirts of the great crowd of the unbelievers. If the Public Vaccinator has found that there exists no repugnance to arm-to-arm inoculation, it does appear strange that so few should have been submitted to bhe operation ; and the fact of there being so few clearly shows that Dr. Nicholson cannot have penetrated very far among the ranks of the unvaccinated., That there is a general suspicion among the community inspecting the danger of vaccination with human lymph is unquestionable, having its grounds more generally in the dangers arising from unskilful inoculation, than from a byiiefc' that germs of disease can be conveyed in the fluid itself that is the ipfcison of cow-pox. That the most idathsQine diseases may be transmitted

by improper inoculation, and by the contact of poisoned blood, is as clear ai s'tlie chining of the sun hi the firmament; and perhaps there ia not a parent that is ever indifferent to the -health of the child or of its family, from which the lymph is communicated to his own offspring. This circumstance of itself is sufficient to account for a good deal of the so called "indifference" to vaccination, and aa no legislation will ever be carried out in opposition to any general, repugnance in the community, it is exceedingly satisfactory to find that Dr. Nicholson has evinced a deep interest in procuring animal lymph, and that, through his exertions, one of the great barriers to general vaccination will probably be removed.