§ MR. LUPTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India it he has any official information to the effect that ton prisoners out of twenty-four inoculated with cholera virus for experimental purposes, in Manila, died, and that the experimenters explain that the virus was contaminated with bubonic plague; and whether any precautions have been taken in India to make sure that the virus used for vaccination in that dependency is free from bubonic plague germs; and, if so, will he describe them.
§ MR. JOHNT ELLISThe preserved vaccine, which is now used largely for vaccination in all parts of India, is prepared in a strictly scientific manner at special depots, and I am advised that the possibility of its contamination by plague in course of its preparation is excluded. In provinces where arm to arm vaccination is still practised, great care is taken in the selection of the persons from whom the lymph is taken.