Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
MDCCCXLVII
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination considered in relation to the public health : with inquiries and suggestions thereon. A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Morpeth, First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods & Forests. / By John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    children be a duty, not only to them, but to the entire community, it cannot be wholly beyond the supervising authority of the State to see to its actual performance. The period of child¬ hood is that at which such authority can be most ad vantageously exercised, because, in this particular instance, the earlier it is carried into effect the better. It is then, also, that it can be most easily applied, because none of those difficulties and obstructions exist which would surround every attempt to impose such a condition upon adults, as, for example, public officers, domestic servants, &c. (b.) The limitation of this inter¬ ference to the case of children attending at schools affords another strong ground of justification. Even within his own home, and amidst his own family, it should perhaps hardly be permitted to any one to deny his children the benefit of being protected from small-pox ; but when the latter are sent out to associate with others, no plea can justify their being allowed to remain apt receptacles for poison, living vehicles of probable contagion, which may go on to endanger the health or lives of all. Nothing can be more painfully disastrous or unpardonably cruel than to suffer a child to be the victim of neglected pre¬ caution, or an innocent transmitter of disease or disfigurement to its perhaps alike unprotected playmates. With all possible respect for private independence, a man’s liberty of doing a public wrong may be justly restrained. So reasonable indeed is this interference, in regard to vaccination among children attending at schools, and so desirous are parents of sending them there, that none are at all likely to be deprived of the benefits of education in consequence of any permanent scruples or prejudices about vaccination. Lastly, no hardship would be created in the shape of expense, for the public vaccinator is alwyays at hand to perform his functions at the public cost. (B.) The Medical Inspection.—This, it is proposed, should be applied to all schools whatsoever, or at least should be capable of such application. No limitation, no distinction, should be recognised by the State, whatever latitude might be sanctioned in the officer of health himself. To the inspection itself no possible objection can be urged, b 2