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It was resolved at this meeting of the Municipal Committee that the
Civil Surgeon should send up to the Secretary of the Municipal Committee
the names of parents who disregarded the notices. The system suggested by
me was accordingly put in force, but the Civil Surgeon reports with regret that
there has been little if any improvement. " Some of the people," he says,
" refuse to have anything to do with the notices, and many of those who take
them pay no attention to them. Of course," he adds, " no legal action can be
taken inasmuch as the Act has not been extended to Lahore and vaccination
is not compulsory."
Dr. Gray thinks it right to mention, however, that some of the native
members take an interest in vaccination and occasionally accompany the
vaccinators, but they seem to have little influence with the people, and comes
to the conclusion " that the attempt to protect the majority of children in the
city from small-pox by vaccination is, under the present system, a failure, and
that the work is now carried on with so much friction, and with so much trouble
to all concerned, that a change of system is not only advisable but absolutely
necessary."
Two alternatives suggest themselves to him—one, that there be established
in the city certain centres of vaccination to which people may voluntarily bring
their children for vaccination ; the second, that vaccination be made compulsory.
In the present feeling of the people he observes there would be a risk of the first
failing from want of vaccinifers, for though many would willingly bring their
children to be vaccinated, none, he believes, would allow lymph to be taken from
them, and the supply, therefore, must soon fail. He does not believe that the
objection to have lymph taken from their children is due to any religious
scruple or prejudice, but to the feeling that the operation inflicts pain without
any compensating advantage, and his opinion therefore is, that if compulsory
vaccination were introduced and judiciously carried out, the whole community
would quietly acquiesce. There are doubtless a good many of the people who are
sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the benefits conferred by vaccination, and
who would not object to its being made compulsory. Most of the members of
the Municipal Committee, I believe, are in favor of it. The Commissioner, Colonel
C. C. Minchin, in forwarding the report to this office, makes the following obser-
vation on the subject:—
" Dr. Gray points out that while vaccination in the outlying villages is fairly success-
ful, in Lahore city itself it is a failure, and suggests that one or two courses be followed, either
to have centres of vaccination to which people may voluntarily bring their children, which
is tantamount to giving up vaccination, except in a few instances, or to make vaccination
compulsory. In my opinion, the time has come when the latter course should be resorted
to. It is hopeless to expect the people to bring their children voluntarily. It is only because
the people in the villages are more amenable to control, and that in everything but the
name it is compulsory, that the success has been greater."
Assistant Surgeon Brij Lál Ghose, Rái Bahádur, who is in charge of
vaccine operations in Lahore, and whose services are particularly brought to
notice by the Civil Surgeon, states in his report that " we have commenced (10th
December) a system in which the children are not taken out of the streets for
the purpose of vaccination. Two sets of notices are issued to the parents, one
asking all the unprotected children, and the other requesting vaccinated
children to be present on a certain day and at a fixed place. By this arrange-
ment, he adds, " lymph is taken from those who are already protected and the
others vaccinated," but how far this will succeed with the people of Lahore he is
unable to say at the present time.
Vaccination in the district.—Assistant Surgeon Múl Chand, who has had
the supervision of the work in the district since the beginning of December last,
reports very favorably of the attitude of the people. He states that the people
in the district have now no objection to or prejudice against vaccination, that
they have become sensible of the benefits it confers, and willingly bring their
children to be vaccinated.
There are, however, he says, a few Brahmans and Jáls who object to have
their children vaccinated, unless it be from those of their own caste.
Although the work has gone on easily and without friction in the district, the
number vaccinated is less than it was in the previous year. This is ascribed to three