87
Inoculation.
(h) A considerable number of inoculations was performed in the Gurdáspur District
during the year under report. Altogether
22,805 were done. Of these 654 were per-
formed in September by officers especially engaged for inoculation operations.
Statistics of inoculation in the Gurdáspur District will be found in Statement No. 6
Appendix B. The attitude of the people towards inoculation was at first one of distrust and
dislike and for the most part they only resorted to it either during an outbreak of plague in
the villages or when in imminent danger of one. Later they showed some confidence, and
Major Dallas considers that the operations have been fairly generally popular.
The Executive Plague Medical Officer remarks that in the Shakargarh Tahsíl during
the height of the epidemic the Medical-Officers could hardly cope with the demand for
inoculation.
The same rumours that have been mentioned as prevailing in other districts were
also current in Gurdáspur, namely, that inoculation produced blindness and impotency ; that
different kinds of fluids were used for different classes of persons, the people being given
the worst, and so forth.
Some persons—Rájpúts and Brahmins—considered that their pardah system did
not permit of their women being inoculated by men; others—chiefly, the Executive Plague
Medical Officer remarks, Mullahs and Brahmans, who had a personal interest in the num-
ber of persons dying—preached against inoculation as being against their religions.
Among the objections raised against inoculation were that during the harvest the
people could not spare the time to be inoculated ; a similar objection was frequently urged
by the very poor who said that they could not afford to remain idle for two or three days
while suffering from the effects of inoculation.
The method adopted for rendering the acceptance inoculation was the constant
preaching of it by all the principal officials of the district.
The Plague Medical Officer; though he does not furnish detailed statistics, reports
that effects of inoculation were most beneficial and mentions instances of villages the inhar
bitants of which had been inoculated and reinoculated after three months escaping plague
altogether, although completely surrounded by infected villages in one of these re-inoculat-
ed villages which was situated only a few yards from a badly infected village and in
which mortality among rats was observed.
In no instance was any harm observed to follow inoculation.
Two hundred and six inoculated persons contracted plague, of whom 63 died, a case
mortality of only 30'58 per cent., less than half that of the general plague fatality in the
district.
Among the 1,143 persons inoculated in Gurdáspur City, I man contracted plague and
died.
Infection.
(i) As has already been said, the outbreak of plague in the Shakargarh Tahsíl was in
all probability a recrudescence of the disease,
and as stated in the report for 1900-01 it is
probable that plague never died out in the tahsíl.
Infection was conveyed chiefly by human agency. Major Dallas writes:—
" There can, I think, be no doubt that the infection was brought to Bholeke and Saleh
Chak from the Shakargarh Tahsíl, and I think in the case of Bholeke it was brought by
Ghumárs (carriers). As regards Pathánkot, I am however, not so sure. It is true that
Bambiál and Basarwán, the first villages in that tahsíl infected, are on the same side of the
Ravi main stream as Shakargarh, but they are also close to the Jammu border, and I believe
that plague was very bad there at the time also, and there is always a certain amount of
traffic passing through Bambiál to and from Jammu.
" Lála Labhu Rám gives instances in which the germs are supposed to have been
carried in merchandise or goods, but I should be inclined to doubt this without further proof.
If this were the case I do not understand how some of our large towns into which goods
must come from plague-infected areas have escaped so long. Batála itself in this district
did not become infected until June and yet goods from all parts of the district were taken
there.
" I cannot say that I have noticed any cases of rats or other animals carrying the
germs from one village to another, though if they can do so from one house to another I
see no reason why they should not do so from one village to another, if the villages are close
enough."