HC Deb 18 June 1918 vol 107 cc154-5
9. Mr. CHANCELLOR

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the statement made by Major P. Norton Smith Hartley, M.D., at the meeting of the Inter-Allied Conference for the after-care of the wounded at Westminster in May, that up to the end of last year 20,000 men had been invalided from the British Army through tuberculosis; whether his medical advisers have made, or are making, any special investigation into the causes of this depletion of the military forces available for service; and whether they will inquire how far the numerous inoculations and vaccinations carried out upon the men help to render them liable to and assist the development of the disease in question?

Mr. MACPHERSON

Special investigation has been made into this matter, and particular attention directed to any possible influence of inoculations and vaccinations on tuberculosis. The result shows that there is no evidence whatever that inoculation or vaccination, as at present carried out in the Army, has any deleterious effect of the nature suggested.