§ MR.WETHERED, asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government has received information of the deaths of six children at or near Gainsborough from erysipelas consequent upon vaccination which had been performed by the appointed officer with lymph derived from the arm of a child vaccinated by such officer with "points" supplied to him by the National Vaccine Establishment; whether they have heard of other cases of severe erysipelas having occurred in the same district in the same way; and, what steps the Government have taken or will take in the matter?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHThe Government have received information, I 389 am sorry to say, of the death of the children mentioned in the hon. Gentleman's Question, and I have caused a careful investigation of the circumstances of the cases to be made by Mr. Netten Radcliffe, one of the Inspectors of the Local Government Board. It is true that the children were vaccinated with lymph taken from a child which had been vaccinated from points supplied by the National Vaccine Establishment, but no symptons of erysipelas appeared in that child, and it appears certain that the lymph furnished by it did not convey any infection of erysipelas. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that the infection in any of the cases can be attributed to the lymph which was used. There have been other cases of erysipelas in the district, some of them following, others entirely disconnected with vaccination. The whole of the facts are fully detailed in Mr. Radcliffe's exhaustive Report, which I propose to lay on the Table of the House.