that millions, the majority, of Englishmen, have never seen a
case of smallpox at all. Not knowing the awful danger they have
escaped, through Great Britain having had compulsory
vaccination since 1853, they have become lax in their belief in
the necessity for the continuance of that precaution. "They
jest at scars that never felt a wound." Towns such as
Gloucester in England, in which a large number of children have
been allowed to grow up unvaccinated, have always been visited
sooner or later by a serious outbreak of smallpox. It must be
so; the laws of natural phenomena can not be changed to suit
the taste of those persons who are mentally incapable of
understanding them. They can not be evaded; ignorance of the
law is no more an excuse in the realm of natural than of
man-made law.

We now come to that undesirable product of present-day,
grandmotherly legislation, the conscientious objector. As I am
not a politician, I shall not say anything for or against the
policy of inserting in a bill which makes vaccination
compulsory a clause giving to the conscientious objector the
power or right to refuse to have his child vaccinated, but as a
medical man who knows a little of the history of medicine, I
can only describe it as gratuitous folly. I am one of those who
believe that the laity should have no say in the matter of
whether any given procedure is or is not advantageous for the
public health. The efficacy of universal inoculation of
vaccinia as a prophylactic against variola is a question of
scientific medicine to be decided on technical grounds and
ought not to be a matter open to debate by the public at all.
It is perfectly monstrous to suppose that the ordinary person,