Extract from the Proceedings of the Resident at Hyderabad, No. 2120, dated
Hyderabad Residency, the 27th June 1892.
READ—
Sanitary Commissioner's Notes on the annual returns of vaccination in the Hyderabad Assigned
Districts for the year 1891-92.
ORDER.
1. The Sanitary Commissioner's notes were received on the 17th May, or
two days late, and the Commissioner's review on the 17th instant.
2. The record of the year is marked by the introduction of two improvements,
viz., the transfer of vaccination in dispensary towns from Medical Officers to the
special establishment, and the exclusive use of animal lymph. Results show
that the former change, besides relieving the Medical Department of work which
it had not time to perform, has directly benefited the cause of vaccination in the
increased number of operations; the second reform, which fortunately meets
with no opposition on the part of the people, may, amongst its other advantages,
be trusted to prevent in future the impermanence of protection due to degener-
ated lymph, to which Dr. Little refers in the fifth paragraph of his notes.
3. There has been a substantial increase in the total number of successful
operations performed in the province during the year, and the increase has been
progressive. The increase occurs in both primary vaccinations and re-vaccina-
tions, the former showing a percentage of 95.2 successful operations, and the
latter a percentage of 29.4. These results must be considered extremely good,
and the report shows that they have been submitted to the closest scrutiny.
4. The percentage of success (82.3 per cent. of births exclusive of deaths)
attained in the vaccination of the infant population is very high, and is a proof
that the vaccinators have done their work efficiently during the year and
that the people themselves have learnt to recognize the benefits of vaccination.
Moreover the satisfaction of feeling that, the protection of this, the most susceptible,
portion of the population is fairly complete is enhanced by the knowledge that
there cannot be many children remaining unvaccinated in Berar. The propor-
tion protected by primary vaccination during the last ten years is 32.9 per mille,
while the birth-rate for the same period is 40.7
It would be interesting if in future reports the Sanitary Commissioner were
to record any observations as to the castes that furnish the largest number of
subjects.
5. As regards re-vaccination there is, as the Sanitary Commissioner ob-
serves, no statistical record for civil practice. It is, however, doubtful whether
the comparison which he makes with military standards is likely to yield any
satisfactory conclusion as regards the percentage of success, since any com-
parative table of re-vaccination to be instructive must show at what age the
primary vaccination was performed, at what interval subsequent re-vaccination
was performed, and whether re-vaccination was performed more than once. The
question also presents itself whether racial differences are likely to modify in any
way the results of re-vaccination. Is re-vaccination the same process in the
European that it is in the Hindu ? Small-pox in ,the negro is a much more
fatal disease than it is in the European.
The disproportion between the vesicles and the succeeding cicatrices in re-
vaccination which has been noticed in the district of Wun is interesting, and
might be made the subject of enquiry, as the experience of the Superintendent
of Vaccination in that respect is not singular.
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