HC Deb 10 June 1915 vol 72 cc369-70
62. Mr. GINNELL

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War why the liability of all Army recruits to inoculation with the virus of infectious disease is withheld from the public in Ireland at the present time; whether inoculation is enforced as part of military discipline on men not previously made aware of that liability; from what diseases the virus is taken; whether from human beings or from beasts; and against what diseases the inoculation is supposed to be effective?

Mr. TENNANT

A soldier agrees to vaccination as part of the contract he enters into on enlistment. There is no difference between soldiers enlisted in Ireland and in other parts of the United Kingdom in this respect. I have frequently explained that inoculation against enteric is not compulsory. This is, of course, the case in Ireland equally with the rest of the United Kingdom. As regards the scientific and technical side of the hon. Member's question, I am informed that vaccine lymph is obtained from vesicles of cowpox in calves and that the vaccine used in inoculation against enteric fever is made from the organism of enteric fever grown on an artificial medium and then killed by means of heat.