46
another. The vesicle was so good a one that I had 3 children, on whom the ani-
mal lymph failed, vaccinated from it, making 6 points on each, 3 on either arm
and on the eighth day after, the vaccinator, to whom I gave strict injunctions to
watch the results, reported that 17 vesicles had appeared amongst the three children,
and that they were so large and good he took all the lymph he could from them
to work with, leaving, at the same time, his previous lymph to die out. This is the
most striking instance I experienced of the uncertainty of animal lymph when used
direct from the calf; but when transmitted in tubes I have invariably found it inert
when applied to the human subject, so much so that I now always supply it to vac-
cinators, after the first transmission, when they require their lymph renewed. By this
means I have supplied every vaccinator in the Native States with fresh lymph, and
they all report favourably of it. In the Punch Mahals I have at different times inocu-
lated calves and from them vaccinated children in each separate talooka, so that
the vaccinators are now working with lymph to the purity of which I can testify from
personal observation, as well as to the richness of the vesicles it produces. Each of the
Government vaccinators has been instructed how to perform the operation on the calf,
as has also the Sub-Assistant Surgeon in charge of the Godra dispensary, and one of
them, assistant vaccinator Jaithalall Gunputram, who acts as office clerk, has become
quite an expert at it, so much so that I would now have no hesitation in entrusting him
with the performance of it on his own account.
Popularity of animal vac-
cination.
13. That animal vaccination is more or less popular in these districts, is, to my
mind, beyond all doubt. In the first place, it would set at
rest,—were it possible to have depôts in the different dis-
tricts containing animals with a supply of lymph every
sixth day—one of the greatest objections the people have to getting their children vacci-
nated, the fear of having to give lymph back again for the use of others. This
prejudice is so strong amongst some people that I have seen a man object to have the
lymph taken off the arm of one of his own children to vaccinate another, and that too
so strenuously that he had to have his way, though he had not the slightest objection
to (in fact earnestly requested it) have his unprotected child vaccinated with lymph
from the arm of a stranger. This fear of having the lymph taken off their arm is the
chief, or I should say only, cause of the large number of scratched vesicles one sees, and
altogether accounts for,—far more frequently than the use of bad lymph to which I have
often heard them attributed—the ragged-looking cicatrices so familiar to every superin-
tendent of vaccination. Could the necessity for taking the lymph from the arms of
children be removed there would be little doubt as to the advance vaccination would
make in popularity ; and there would be fewer instances of scratched vesicles leaving
nasty sores instead of neat round scabs. But in the absence of any means of doing away
with this necessity we have only to trust to time and the schoolmaster to remove the
objections parents have to allow lymph to be taken from the arms of their children.
Again there is a mystery about animal vaccination, to some extent, that enhances its
value fourfold in the appreciation of ignorant minds. To them a thing that is