And Parliament, after an unusual amount of discussion, passed an Act[27] for extending the practice of vaccination, and enacted that Boards of Guardians might contract with their Medical Officers or other medical practitioners "for the vaccination of all persons resident in their Union or Parish." And at the same time "inoculation" or "otherwise producing smallpox" was made penal--to the extent of one month's imprisonment. In 1846 there was a sudden display of Parliamentary energy in health matters. The total want of baths and wash-houses for the poorer classes of the people in the towns was brought under the notice of the Legislature, and, as it was deemed "desirable for the health, comfort, and welfare of the inhabitants of towns, &c., to encourage the establishment therein of baths, wash-houses, and open bathing places," an Act was passed giving power to the Parochial Authorities to establish such institutions and to borrow money for the purpose.[28] Their provision would have tended to an increased degree of cleanliness among the people, and consequently an improved sanitary condition, but it was long before many of these institutions were established, the local authorities being slow in availing themselves of the facilities thus offered, and this piece of legislation--like every other of the sort--being purely permissive or facilitatory. And in the same year Parliament so far awakened to the fact that certain causes of disease were removable, that in a preamble to an Act[29] it acknowledged that it was "highly expedient for the purposes of preserving the health of Her Majesty's subjects that better provision should be made for the removal of certain nuisances likely to promote or increase disease." The better provision made by the Act did not amount to much. There were two forms of insanitary evil to be combated: one the chronic insanitary condition of the masses of the people, the other the invasion of the country by some exceptional or unusual epidemic disease. As to the former, authority was given to certain public officers, on receipt of a certificate of two medical men, to complain of the existence of certain nuisances. The Justices before whom the case was heard might order the abatement of the nuisance; and if the order were not obeyed, the parties complaining might enter upon the necessary cleansing of such dwelling, and the cost of the same might be imposed on the owner or occupier. In London, the power of complaint was vested in the officers of those petty local bodies which have already been described, and, in their default, in the Boards of Guardians.