3
Seoni being specially great. In Nagpur there was a decrease, which in paragraph
18 you seem to attribute to want of support on the part of the Civil authorities.
There were fewer operations in Sagar, Mandla, Bhandara, Chanda and the
Upper Godavari district. The decrease in Chanda is very great, the operations
this year being only slightly in excess of half of those of 1871 ; but the causes
of this falling off are fully accounted for in paragraph 85. In the districts of
Damoh, Wardha and Bilaspur, the numbers are nearly the same as for 1871,
and in all the other districts, viz. in Jabalpur, Narsinghpur, Hoshangabad,
Nimar, Balaghat, Raipur and Sambalpur there was an increase. On the whole
then there was increased activity and more children have been protected. The
Table given in your paragraph 24 is interesting, in so far that it serves to
indicate in which district operations should be vigorously pushed on. The figures
given in it, however, only show the population actually under registration, not
the whole population of the Province, and the Table establishes in the most con-
clusive manner how little trust can even now after much trouble and labour
expended on them, be placed in the Returns.
8. Thus the total of Column 3 is 146,429, and this figure is said to repre-
sent for the whole Province (except the Feudatories) the number of children
under one year of age available for vaccination. Now the late Census showed the
number of children under one year of age to be 455,853, and though some
deduction would have to be made on account of the Feudatory States, yet enough
has been said to-show how erroneous any deductions drawn from the Table
would be. To take another instance, that of Chhindwara, the first district in
the list. You give the available children as 5,844, whereas the Census papers
exhibit a total of 16,781 children, of whom 8,345 were males and 8,436 females.
The Chief Commissioner does not consider it necessary to say more on this
point.
9. It is satisfactory to learn that the objections to vaccination are year by
year growing fainter. In fact it would seem that what has now to be overcome
is apathy and indifference and not deep rooted prejudice. In Betul and Chhind-
wara men of position who had formerly either actively or passively opposed the
measure lent their support to it, and the same cheering signs have no doubt ap-
peared also elsewhere. The apathy and indifference, however, of the masses give
way in the presence of the disease, and they are then eager that their children
shall be vaccinated.
10. This is really what the practical meaning of your paragraphs 15—18 is.
When small-pox appears in a village those attacked by it are segregated, a Vac-
cinator is despatched to the spot, and means taken to prevent the dissemination
of the disease by the temporary closing of the daily or weekly bazar. People
frightened at the presence of the disease and fearing its attacking their families
readily bring forward their children and have them vaccinated. The simple precau-
tions taken by the Administration to arrest the spread of the disease can in no
way be dignified by the name of a "plan," and the "principle" in virtue of which
vaccination is then readily sought for is the instinct of self-preservation which
drives the people to avail themselves of the means placed at their disposal for
escape from infection.
11. The Chief Commissioner fears that it is not the apathy of the people
alone which leads to small results, but the apathy and idleness of many of the
Vaccinators. The reason why Surgeon Hall in the Betul district found plenty of
children to vaccinate, while many of his subordinates found but few, seems very