ation, consequent on the specific action
of the lymph of the vaccination, in its action on the circulating system
of the body. This is not the place to speak of the benefits conferred on
mankind by the discovery of vaccination, not only as the preserver of
the human features from a most loathsome disfigurement, but as a
sanitary agent in the prolongation of life.

2544. Fortunately the State has now made it imperative on all parents to
have their children vaccinated before, or by the end of, the twelfth
week; thus doing away, as far as possible, with the danger to public
health proceeding from the ignorance or prejudice of those parents whose
want of information on the subject makes them object to the employment
of this specific preventive; for though vaccination has been proved
_not_ to be _always_ an infallible guard against small-pox, the attack
is always much lighter, should it occur, and is seldom, if indeed
_ever_, fatal after the precaution of vaccination. The best time to
vaccinate a child is after the sixth and before the twelfth week, if it
is in perfect health, but still earlier if small-pox is prevalent, and
any danger exists of the infant taking the disease. It is customary, and
always advisable, to give the child a mild aperient powder one or two
days before inserting the lymph in the arm; and should measles, scarlet
fever, or any other disease arise during the progress of the pustule,
the child, when recovered, should be _re-vaccinated_, and the lymph
taken from its arm on no account used for vaccinating purposes.

2545. The disease of cow-pox generally takes twenty days to complete its
course; in other words, the maturity and declension of the pustule takes
that time to fulfil its several changes. The mode of vaccination is
either to insert the matter, or lymph, taken from a healthy child, under
the cuticle in several places on both arms, or, which is still better,
to make three slight scratches, or abrasions, with a lancet on one arm
in this manner, ,,",, and work into the irritated parts the lymph,
allowing the arm to dry thoroughly before putting down the infant's
sleeve; by this means absorption is insured, and the unnecessary pain of
several pustules on both arms avoided. No apparent change is observable
by the eye for several days; indeed, not till the fourth, in many cases,
is there any evidence of a vesicle; about the fifth day, however, a pink
areola, or circle, is observed round one or all of t