4
on the eighth day after having been vaccinated. The peons add consider-
ably to the cost of our system ; although at present I do not see how we could
do without them, still I think it may be reasonably expected that at some
future time the vaccinator will be able to work without a peon.
7th. Over the whole department there is the Superintendent General,
who is under the control of the Surgeon General of the Indian Medical
Department.
5. This " Bombay System of Vaccination ", as reorganized in 1871, is,
as far as I can see, perfect in theory, and in its application it has realized
my best and highest hopes—that it will soon reach its utmost limits of ex-
tension, may safely be affirmed; and then vaccination will be within easy
reach of all, even of those who live in the remotest wilds of Western India.
Buthowever good our system is, still I do not think small-pox can be complete-
ly stamped-out under it or even under any more perfect voluntary system.
Yet I do hope and expect that the unprotected residuum will soon be so small
and so scattered over an area of close on two hundred thousand square miles,
that small-pox will never again be able to sweep over the plains of the
Dekhan, destroying its tens of thousands. Of all our provinces Sindh was
formerly the most afflicted by small-pox ; so dire was the disease that almost
all the people protected themselves by practising small-pox inoculation.
Now the disease is less felt there than anywhere, notwithstanding the
intercourse with the unvaccinated peoples on its boundaries who constantly
carry the disease into Sindh. In our coast districts small-pox is never
absent, and yet how few are the deaths ! In Gujarath small-pox has existed
throughout the year, and yet the deaths were only 861. These results bid
me hope that small-pox, as a devastating epidemic disease, is within our
power ; but small-pox, in its endemic form, is not and never can be entirely
under any voluntary system.
Increases and de-
creases in the number
of vaccinators.
6. The number of Government vaccinators remain at 6, of whom 4 are
military and 2 civil. The latter are employed, as stated
in last report, in Rájkot and Dísá; and the former
in the cantonments of Poona, Mhow, Nimach and
Nasirábád : all the rest are paid by municipal, local and
native states' funds. At the close of the year, there were 6 Government, 51
municipal, 203 local funds, and 129 native states' vaccinators, and the total
number was 389, being an increase of 8 over the preceding year. There was
an increase of 5 municipal vaccinators in Bombay city, and one was employed
during the whole year in Dhárwád town, and another was at work in the towns
of Gulatgad and Kerúr during the last two months only of the year : these
two towns have joined to keep up a vaccinator on Rs. 12, and a peon on
Rs. 6 per mensem : one was appointed to Kárwár, but was abolished
within the year, and one was appointed for Rohri—total increases 9. The
reductions were of the vaccinators of Wálwá, Karhád, and Aden on the 31st
March 1874; one of the vaccinators in Karáchi town was abolished in Octo-
ber, and the junior vaccinator was reduced in December last; and if we
include the Karwar vaccinator, the total reductions are 6—thus leaving a net
increase of 3 municipal vaccinators. There is one more local fund vaccinator
who was appointed for the pethá of Mundegod in Kánadá. In native states
there has been an increase of 4 vaccinators: 1 in Bhor, 1 in Sángli for
Shapur and Dodwád pethás, 1 in Janjirá and 1 in Káthewád for the Gondal
state, which was found to be too large for one vaccinator. In Rewa Kantha
a vaccinator was reduced in Lúnwada, and a second appointed in Chota