HC Deb 23 May 1906 vol 157 cc1271-2
MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the clerks to health authorities in England and Wales carry out the duty imposed on them by Section 8 of the Vaccination Act, 1898, and register the condition as to vaccination of all small-pox patients treated in hospitals maintained by such authorities; and, if so, whether the omissions of medical men to enter in the death certificates relating to such deaths the vaccinal status of 308 out of 507 deaths from small-pox, as recorded in the 67th Report of the Registrar-General for 1904, can be rectified by reference to the aforesaid registers so as to show accurately how many of the deaths recorded by the Registrar-General were deaths of vaccinated persons.

MR. JOHN BURNS

So far as I am aware the records required by the section are usually kept. But a reference to them would not show the vaccinal status of all the persons mentioned in the Registrar-General's Report as having died from small-pox. The section only relates to small-pox hospitals maintained by sanitary authorities, and it is known that in a considerable number of cases the deaths did not occur in these hospitals.