§ MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is true that a boy, named Thomas Taylor, was certified by an Ipswich surgeon as having been successfully vaccinated by him on 20th May 1868; whether this boy was not returned by the Ipswich medical officer as having died of small pox in the Borough Fever Hospital on the 7th April 1877 unvaccinated; and, whether he will cause inquiry to be made into the circumstances?
§ MR. SCLATER - BOOTHI have made some inquiry into this case, and I find that according to the Vaccination Register, it is the fact that the boy in question was certified to have been successfully vaccinated by an Ipswich surgeon on May 20, 1868. He died in the borough hospital on the 7th of April, 1877, of small pox, and the medical officer in attendance certified that he was unvaccinated—first, because there were no vaccination marks to be seen; secondly, because the mother stated that the boy had been vaccinated three times by the assistant of Mr. Adams, but unsuccessfully. The mother is very positive in her statement as to the vaccination not having been successful; in this she is corroborated by a neighbour who remembers the circumstance. It is not easy to explain the discrepancy between the entry in the Vaccination Register and the facts which have now been ascertained; but the vaccination occurred before the Act of 1871, when certificates were sometimes given without inspection of result.