§ MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is a fact that there is no well-ascertained case of spontaneous cow-pox on record; whether it is a fact that the common practice for many years 149 has been to inoculate the calf with the virus of human small-pox, thus causing, in the words of Sir Thomas Watson, "a vast amount of mitigated small-pox; "whether it is a fact that within the last few years the mortality from small-pox at the Hague and other cities in Holland and Belgium (whence he proposes to obtain fresh lymph) has been enormously large; and, whether he will bring in a Bill to abolish Compulsory Vaccination?
§ MR. HIBBERT (for Mr. DODSON)I do not know what my hon. Friend would consider a well-ascertained case of spontaneous cow-pox; but cases of outbreaks of this disease among cows are specifically mentioned in the treatises on this subject, as well as in the Evidence before the Select Committee in 1871. I am informed that it is not a fact that the common practice for many years has been to inoculate the calf with the virus of human small-pox. I have no statistics as to the mortality from small-pox in Belgium; but in Holland the mortality in the epidemic of 1870–72 was very large indeed. There is nothing to show what proportion of the cases were vaccinated; and it must be borne in mind that neither in Belgium nor in Holland is vaccination compulsory. The President of the Local Government Board has no intention to bring in a Bill to abolish compulsory vaccination.