§ Mr. BLACKasked the President of the Local Government Board, with reference to the Report on the preparation and storage of glycerinated calf lymph in Berlin and other places abroad, contained in the Supplement to the Twenty-sixth Annual Report of his Department, presented to Parliament in 1897, whether in the three years 1906–7–8 there had been in England, with a great decrease in vaccination, 43 deaths from small-pox, while in Prussia, with approximately the same population, there had been 134 deaths from that disease in the same period; and whether there was any reason to suppose that the rigorous enforcement of compulsory vaccination had been at all relaxed in Prussia in the three years referred to?
§ The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns)During the three years 1906–7–8 there were 107 deaths from smallpox in Prussia, according to the official reports of the Imperial German Central Health Department, and not 134 as stated in the question. On the information before me, I have no reason to believe that any relaxation in the enforcement of vaccination has taken place in Prussia. I may add that the 107 deaths from smallpox were derived from 690 notified cases; and that, of this number, 219, or nearly one-third were foreigners, chiefly from Russia, where there is no compulsory vaccination, and where during the period in question smallpox has been widely epidemic.