§ DR. TANNERI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been called to the fact that an epidemic of smallpox now prevails in Dewsbury, Batley, and the neighbourhood known as the heavy woollen district; and has led to heavy local expenditure in providing for the necessities of the case; whether complete isolation of persons capable of spreading infection is attended to; and whether the origin of the epidemic can be traced to inefficient vaccination?
§ * MR. RITCHIEI am aware that there has been an outbreak of small-pox in the district referred to in the question. The Town Councils of Dewsbury and Batley have provided some hospital accommodation, but I cannot state that the arrangements in the district are such as adequately to provide for the complete isolation of all persons capable of spreading infection, although the necessity for providing such means of isolation has on several occasions been urged on the Sanitary Authorities by the Local Government Board. The questions of the origin of the epidemic and of its relation to vaccination are being investigated for the Royal Com- 1655 mission on Vaccination by Dr. Sidney Coupland, of the Middlesex Hospital, who has already been in the district for some weeks.