2
criminately and often within short periods of a successful primary operation having
been effected, the result being an undue inflation of the returns and a false
impression of the actual value of the work done by the Department. The increase
of expenditure in recent years has been mainly due to the cost of the Civil
Surgeons clerks being added to the outlay and to the entertainment of Divisional
Inspectors of Vaccination and Registrars of Births and Deaths. In other respects
the fluctuations in expenditure from year to year have been of the ordinary kind.
Paragraphs 6 to 10.
Special
...
...
Cantonment
...
...
Dispensary ... ...
Total ...
9,835
766
353
10,954
Falling off as compared
with 1897 98.
Special staff
...
Cantonment staff
12.24
6.77
2. In paragraphs 6 to 9 of his report the Officiating Sanitary Commis-
sioner gives a summary of the work during the
triennial period 1896-97 to 1898-99 The average
results attained are noted above. Taking the figures for all the staffs year by
year, a small but perceptible increase is observable in the percentages of success-
ful results in primary vaccinations, while the same percentages for re-vaccinations
fluctuated with a fall from 60.77 in 187-98 to 58.80 in 1898-99, Comparing:
the year 1898-99 with the year 1897-98, which is the more immediate object
of this review, it is found that in regard to primary operations which may be
regarded as the chief work of the Vaccination staff there was an increase of
41,117 primary operations by the District staff, but in the other staffs there was a
decrease which is specially noticeable in the case of the Special staff. The
Lieutenant-Governor is glad to observe the in¬
crease of operations performed by the District
staff, but hopes with the Officiating Sanitary
Commissioner (paragraph 24) for better results in
future, and more especially in the districts
mentioned in the margin of paragraph 12 of the report. In his report
(Appendix E) on the working of the special staff during the year 1898-99
the Deputy Sanitary Commissioner gives various reasons for the falling-off
in primary operations by that staff, and also for the decrease of re-vac-
cinations which amounted to 16,362 as compared with 1897-98. Doubtless the
absence of the Deputy Sanitary Commissioner on plague duty, and the consequent
want of supervision over the vaccinators, had much to do with this falling-off:
perhaps also the partial change of system to working in bodies, to be referred to
presently, instead of in pairs had something to do with it. Improvement, however,
is clearly required, and the Lieutenant-Governor trusts that no efforts will be
spared to attain this. Another point calling for notice and explanation is the
decrease in the percentage of secondary successful cases which fell considerably in
the cases of the Special and Cantonment staffs.
The District staff fairly maintained the precentage
of previous years, while the Dispensary staff
showed an improvement amounting to 10.08.
Paragraphs 11, 21 and 22.
3. In paragraph 2 of the review on the Vaccination Report for the year
1897-98 the very large falling-off in vaccinations
was commented upon. Two causes put forward for
the decrease were carelessness of the staff and inefficacy of the lymph prepared at
the Vaccine Lymph Depôt. The Sanitary Commissioner was accordingly
requested to submit a detailed report showing in what districts the carelessness
occurred, in what it consisted, and to what circumstances the failure of the
lymph was attributed, and how it affected the number of operations as opposed to
the percentage of success attained in them. The end of the enquiry was unsatis-
factory, as it failed to show the precise causes which had led to the decrease in
work. It, however, pointed to a suspicion that a change in method might
have had something to do with it. With regard to this, viz, a change in
the system of work by the vaccinators, it may be briefly noted that
in the year 1895 Brigade-Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel W. A. C. Roe, the
Sanitary Commissioner of the day, in view to checking certain irregularities of
the vaccinators, such as absenting themselves from their posts without leave,
fudging returns to appear as though they had been on duty, and bad work,
issued instructions for a change of system by which the men were to work in
bodies under the immediate control of their native supervisors instead of