Volume 3

A treatise on hygiene and public health / edited by Thomas Stevenson and Shirley F. Murphy.

Date:
1892-1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on hygiene and public health / edited by Thomas Stevenson and Shirley F. Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    460/492 (page 448)
    443 PAST VIII VACCINATION Vaccination [Scot- land] Act, 1863 ; Public Health [Scot- land] Act, Sec. 57 ; Secretary for Scot- land Act, 1885, The -vaccination law of Scotland is contained in a single statute, the Vaccination (Scotland) Act of 1863. The policy and most of the provisions of the Act are similar to those of the English statutes, but there are some variations. The Act is administered through the Board of Supervision and the Registrar-General for Scotland as central authorities, and parochial boards as local authorities. The parochial board must appoint a medical practitioner as vaccinator, report his appointment to the Board of Supervision, and comply with the Board's regulations. The statutory period after birth within which a child must be vaccinated is six months—not three months as in England— but i in insular, highland, and other districts, or portions of such dis- tricts,' the Board of Supervision may, with the consent of the Lord Advocate, modify the provisions of the Act as regards this period. (The Board have extended the period in several parishes to nine and twelve months.) The district registrars receive certificates of vaccination, and once in every six months transmit to the parochial boards the names of parents or other persons having the care of children who have failed to vaccinate them. The parochial board then issues an order to vac- ciDate, and, failing compliance, the offender is liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty shillings, or ten days' imprisonment. The same penalty is provided for failure to transmit a certificate of vaccination to the registrar within the prescribed period ; and it has been judicially decided that persons refusing to have their children vaccinated may be prosecuted so often and so long as their names appear in the half-yearly lists of defaulters. It is the duty of the Board of Supervision to require the performance by a parochial board-of its duties under the Act, and in ca3e of failure the Board of Supervision may perform these duties. But there is no general feeling in any part of Scotland against the Vaccination Act, and only twenty-nine penalties were enforced under it in the whole country in the year 1892-93.