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account of the season. Now, this opinion is too general to be of much
value; we certainly have more rain in the island of Bombay and the
Konkan generally than in any part of the Eastern Gujaráth circle,
though perhaps the heat there may be a little greater. During the hottest
months there is a tendency to degeneration of the vaccine virus, but this
can be easily met and prevented by 1st a little extra care in selecting the
very best and most typical vesicles from which to take lymph : 2nd vac-
cinating very carefully from arm-to-arm and 3rd selecting healthy and clean-
skinned children to operate on. When I was superintendent in Sindh,
I have seen many children, with the most perfect vesicles, when the hot
wind was blowing in May and the thermometer at 110° in the shade. Even
tube-lymph, if carefully selected and sealed, succeeds very fairly in
the month of July—as was proved last year by two experiments. Dr
Gordon in medical charge of the Puná Horse at Sirúr charged 17 tubes
in June 1873 : of which 9 were sent to the Southern circle and 8 to
the Central circle. Dr. Raby reported the result of the use of the 9 as fol-
lows, viz :—
10 children were operated on and 61 punctures made : vesicles appeared on
all the children except one, and 42 insertions resulted in vesicles, of which 30
were characterized as large and well-shaped, very good, large and full sized,
medium sized and well shaped : 6 as small and 4 as very small, 2 as small and
indifferent. Dr. Robb reported the results in the 8 tubes which were sent
to the Central circle as follows, viz. :—8 children operated on and 36 punc-
tures made. The result in 2 children was unknown, so it may be said that
there were only 6 children and 29 punctures, 10 vesicles large, round, and
well filled, with good lymph, appeared on 4 children and in the other 2 there
were no vesicles at all. If lymph can be thus successful in July after being
transmitted by means of tubes through the post several hundred miles it is
only reasonable to suppose that it should be more so when used from arm-to-
arm. The animal lymph having failed in Bombay it became necessary to
supply the superintendent of the Presidency circle with lymph sent in tubes
from the other circles, and I regret to say, Mr. Anantá Chandrobá's results,
with the lymph so sent, were very unsatisfactory—while he was failing with
the tube-lymph in Bombay, tubes taken from the very lots that were sent to
him were successful in the hands of others. In the month of August he had
only 10 successful, 5 unknown and 83 failed out of 98 children. In Septem-
ber he operated on 53 with tube-lymph and got 25 successful, 3 unknown
and 25 failures. I am not quite satisfied about the unsuccessful results with
tube-lymph in Bombay and should it again be necessary to resort to its
use I shall myself watch the practice.
English vaccine lymph.
13. During the year there were two supplies of vaccine virus received
in tubes through this Government from Her Majes-
ty's Secretary of State for India. One supply of
25 tubes was received in November and the other supply of an equal num-
ber of tubes in January. I think the whole came from the National
Vaccine Institution in London, but I cannot say positively as I had no
advice with the supplies. In future I should be informed whence the
lymph comes. The following table shows the result of the use of both
supplies :—