Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination. By John C.
McVail, M.D. (P. S. King and Co.)—Dr. McVail examines the statement put forward by the two dissentient members of the Commission, Dr. W. J. Collins and Mr. J. A. Picton. His argu- ments are not, we may hope, wholly thrown away, although 'thinkers of the kind typified by the two protesting Commissioners are scarcely susceptible of conviction. Anti-vaccination is a faith, not an intellectual opinion. The leaders of the religion will always remain steadfast; the followers yield to the practical influence of fear, and flock in crowds to the vaccine-stations when an epidemic establishes itself.—A kindred topic may be found discussed in certain publications (Harrison and Son) re- lating to inoculation for the Plague in Bombay. One gives the comparative mortality of the inoculated and uninoculated among the Khojas in the course of about four months (December, 1897— April, 1898). Of 3,814 inoculated two died of Plague, of 9,516 un- inoculated eighty-five, or one in nearly two thousand as against one in a hundred and eleven. The tendency of modern medicine is so strongly in favour of the remedies of which vaccination is a type that one wonders at the comparative success of its oppo- nents. But revolts against reason never want for leaders.
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