ABSTRACTS OF REPORTS BY SUPERINTENDENTS OF CIRCLES.
CALCUTTA.
Transfer of vaccination in Calcutta to
Health Officer of Corporation of Calcutta
and in the Suburbs of Calcutta to Super-
intendent of Vaccination, Metropolitan
Circles.
IN pursuance of the ruling of the Government of India transferring the Vaccination
Department to the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal,
orders (Bengal Government No. 254T, dated the 25th May
1880) were also passed removing the vaccination in the
town of Calcutta from the control and superintendence of
the Superintendent-General of Vaccination, and vesting it in
those of the Health Officer of the Corporation of Calcutta. In consequence, the latter
officer, as Superintendent of Vaccination, took over charge of the duties from the 1st of
June 1880. Under the same orders the vaccination of the Suburbs of Calcutta was made
over to the Superintendent of Vaccination, Metropolitan Circles. The details of the work
performed in this area, which used hitherto to be included with those of Calcutta, have there-
fore been shown separately in the statements appended to this report, as work performed by
the Metropolitan Circle, and the particulars relating to the transactions of the year have
also been separately abstracted. The arrangements above alluded to with regard to Calcutta
were ordered and carried out in anticipation of the passing of a law, which will be presently
referred to, under the provisions of which the vaccination arrangements in Calcutta, admi-
nistrative, penal, financial, &c., are placed under its Municipal Corporation to be conducted
on a new and different principle and plan.
2. The following is the abstract of the Report on vaccination in Calcutta for 1880-81
furnished by Dr. K. McLeod, the Superintendent of Vaccination:—
Rise and progress of vaccination in
Calcutta.
3. Under this head Dr. McLeod has furnished an interesting and useful report worthy
of record. I therefore reproduce it in extenso:—" The system
of vaccination which has up to the present time been pursued
in Calcutta may be designated as a domiciliary system. Vaccin-
ation was originally introduced in 1803. The virus was conveyed from Madras by a series of
vaccinations performed on a succession of susceptible subjects in the ship Hunter. Means were
promptly adopted to establish the vesicle in Calcutta and the principal stations of the Bengal
presidency under the active encouragement of Government. The introduction of vaccin-
ation into Bengal was hailed with great enthusiasm, which is attested by the fact that a
donation of £400 was transmitted from Calcutta to Jenner in acknowledgment of the benefit
he had conferred on mankind by his discovery. High-caste natives were employed as vaccin-
ators ;public demonstrations of the protective power of the vaccine disease against small-
pox were given ; inoculation was prohibited by police regulation ; stations were established at
which on certain days the operation was performed, and every effort used to induce the
people to resort to them. Notwithstanding this energy and enthusiasm the practice made slow
progress in Calcutta. It met with determined opposition from the inoculators, who con-
tinued to practise their dangerous art in spite of official prohibition, and it was opposed to
the traditions and habits of a people with whom custom is a binding law. Calcutta was
visited in the years 1848-49-50 by an epidemic of small-pox of great severity. This was
made the subject of special enquiry ; and Dr. Duncan Stewart, who at this time held
the office of Superintendent-General of Vaccination, has recorded the facts relating to
this outbreak and the state and progress of vaccination in a most interesting volume
published in the year 1850. It appears from this work that vaccination was still rejected
by a large section of the community, and inoculation practised to a great extent among the
more conservative of the townsmen. The system of vaccination pursued seems at this
time to have been the station system. Another severe outbreak of small-pox occurred
in 1856-57-58, which does not appear to have attracted special notice. This was follow-
ed by a lull, and in 1863-64-65 an epidemic of dimensions almost equalling that of 1848-50,
occurred. This outbreak arrested keen public attention, the outcome of which was the
prohibition of inoculation by law (Act IV of 1865) and the adoption of the domiciliary
system of vaccination in and around Calcutta. Under the able and energetic direction of
Dr. Charles, the vaccine establishment was remodelled and strengthened. Gangs of
vaccinators, under the immediate command of a head vaccinator and the general control
of selected Assistant Surgeons, swept periodically through the town and its approaches, and
vaccinated all who would consent. Official and private influence were called into requisi-
tion, and all that energy and enthusiasm could accomplish was done with a view to stamp-
ing out small-pox. A system of early information of small-pox cases and outbreaks was
organized, and cordons of vaccination were promptly drawn round these. Advantage was
taken of the census returns and birth registration with the object of tracing the unprotected,
and attempts were made, section by section and block by block, to vaccinate the town
systematically and exhaustively. Some impression appeared to have been made, for up to
the year 1878 no outbreak of any magnitude occurred, and two aggravations of the annual
death-rate from this cause were denominated aborted or thwarted visitations of small pox—
aborted, it was asserted, by the practice, habitual and emergent, of vaccination. The out-
break of 1878-79 may be ranked as a third-rate epidemic, and contrary to experience, the
second year of the epidemic presented fewer deaths,—fewer by about one-half than the first.