Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in the Home (Medical and Sanitary)
Department, No. 603 S., dated 25th July 1901.
READ—
The Sanitary Commissioner's Notes on Vaccination for the year 1900-01.
REMARKS.—In all four Vaccination Staffs—District, Special, Dispensary
and Cantonment—there was a falling off in the aggregate number of operations
performed, the total deficit amounting to 160,578 as compared with the year
1899-1900, besides being less than the total number of operations performed by all
the staffs in any year during the past five years. The percentage of success in
both primary operations and re-vaccinations was, however, successfully main-
tained.
2. The Lieutenant-Governor sees no reason to question the causes assigned
by the Sanitary Commissioner for the falling off, viz., the decrease of over 150,000
births as compared with the previous year, scarcity, malarial fever, a general
unhealthiness which rendered children unfit for vaccination, mortality among cattle
which made it difficult to get buffalo calves as vaccinifers, the return to the
Native States of persons who had sought relief in our famine camps, and the
employment of Vaccinators on cholera duty. The work of the Department also
suffered from the employment of the Deputy Sanitary Commissioner as Chief
Plague Medical Officer. In view of the probability of the recrudescence of plague
in the autumn it is in contemplation to formally appoint Captain Wilkinson as
Chief Plague Medical Officer, Punjab, and to apply for the services of a separate
Commissioned Medical Officer to take up the duties of Deputy Sanitary
Commissioner, which Captain Wilkinson is unable to perform adequately in addi-
tion to his plague work.
3. The Lieutenant-Governor regrets that it has not yet been found
possible to give full effect to the instructions of the Government of India for
a trial of glycerinated lymph. The Sanitary Commissioner will doubtless see
that the matter receives prompt attention when the appliances ordered from
England come to hand. The investigation into the protective efficiency of the
vaseline vaccine paste will also have to lie over until the Punjab has again a whole-
time Deputy Sanitary Commissioner at its disposal.
4. In addition to the Municipal towns mentioned by the Sanitary Com-
missioner to which the provisions of the Vaccination Act were extended during
the year 1900-01, it may be noted that the Act was also extended to the
Cantonment of Pesháwar.
5. The orders of the Government of India as to the preparation of the
Report contained in paragraph 10 of the letter from the Home Department,
No. 2743, dated 26th March 1901, have been complied with, except that the Notes
should not have been dignified with the name of Report. In accordance, however,
with paragraph 15 (v) and (vii) of Resolution No. 982—1013, dated 25th
February, the number of pages (4) fixed for the maximum limit of the narrative
part of the Notes should have been printed on the page containing the table of
contents, and cross references between the statistical tables and the paragraphs in
the Notes discussing them should have been given by means of marginal entries
in the paragraphs.
ORDER.—Ordered, that the above Remarks be published in the Punjab
Gazette, and be communicated to the Sanitary Commissioner, Punjab, for informa-
tion and guidance, with reference to paragraph 5; also that they be forwarded
with the Notes as usual to the Government of India in the Home Department.
By order of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor,
H. A. CASSON,
Judicial and General Secretary to Government, Punjab.
Punjab Government Press, Lahore—68-01—250.