SMALL-POX VACCINATION

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4858, 27 July 1925, Page 2

SMALL-POX VACCINATION

CHALLENGE TO OPPONENTS. ‘ TO BECOME CONTACTS. Dr. R. A. Lyster, Medical Officer of Health for Hampshire, and lecturer on Preventive and State Medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, made an appeal at the annual meeting of the Research Defence Society, held in London, for an immediate investigation by the highest medical Authorities into the small-pox scourge and the efficacy of vaccination (says the “Daily Mail”). Undoubtedly, he said, the country was in a critical epoch in the history of the disease. He added: Things have come <o such a pitch now that the public- itself should demand a real inquiry. The bitterness and hostility between the vaccination and anti-vaccination camps must cease. My experience of the leading representatives of the latter party is net altogether unfavourable. I give them credit for high idealjs and a desire for the public benefit. I only ask them to give a measure of similar credit to. their opponents. I want seriously to issue a challenge to them. From my medical school (St. Bartholomew’s) 24 volunteers who have been efficiently vaccinated will come forward and place themselves in intimate contact with fairly severe small-pox cases. I ask the anti-vaccinist party to be prepared to provide a similar number of non-vaccinated volunteers also to attend these cases. If they accept the challenge they will be contributing to one of the most useful pieces of medical research conceivable, and will probably help to settle this controversy once and for all. Lord Knutsford, chairman of the London Hospital, thanked Dr. Lyster for having made his challenge, and declared that some such test had now become essential.