VACCINATION.

Kumara Times, Issue 2543, 15 August 1884, Page 3

VACCINATION.

Among the best ascertained points in the matter of vaccination is the fact that the protection afforded is in proportion to the number and size of the vesicles produced, which leave pitted cicatrices. This being so, the Lancet points out that the parents of children who wish to have them well vaccinated should desire their medical men not to vaccinate in less than four places. The Germans vaccinate in six or eight, and, by so much, more efficiently than we do. Medical men should disabuse patients of the exploded idea that one successful insertion is efficient vaccination. It is only the next thing to being unvaccinated, and is a condition full of risk to the welfare of the patient and to the credit of the practitioner. Where, unfortunately, only one or two insertions succeed, parents should be advised to have the operation repeated in a few years, especially when smallpox is about. We fear there are some practitioners who hold to the efficiency of one-mark vaccipation. We are told that in one provincial town anti-vaccina-tionists take their children to a practitioner who vaccinates in a solitary place. We thought that such practitioners could not now be found. They must be too tender in their feelings. But they should remember that they are discharging a very responsible and public duty unfaithfully and inefficiently and, to avoid giving a moment's scratch, are exposing their patients to the risk of misery and injury resulting from an attack of small-pox. Satisfactory vaccination means such vaccination as “takes” well in four places.