4
One was dismissed for being absent without leave, as he had committed the same fault on
a previous occasion. One was discharged on account of continued sickness. No casualties
occurred.
Inoculation.
13. No report of inoculation has been received, and
if such a practice is still carried on, it must only be to a
very limited extent.
Husband's Tubes.
14. Almost every vaccinator in this Circle can charge these tubes efficiently, but their
use is never allowed to supplant arm-to-arm vaccination
when such is available. Unless these tubes are good, and
of small calibre, it is very difficult to charge them. I regret to say that those lately received
from the Medical Stores have been hard, brittle, and of large calibre.
Registers.
15. The system of village vaccination and small-pox Registers is now almost complete
within this Circle, except in some parts of the Sátárá
Collectorate, into which the Registers have only been
lately introduced. During my tour, I only found one village in which they were wanting,
and that was mainly owing to late changes of the village officers. These Registers are looked
upon as part of the village records, and no " daftar" is considered complete without them.
They are not only valuable as check upon the vaccinators, but are most useful records of the
progress of vaccination in villages, and are always easily accessible to the revenue officers,
most of whom, I am glad to say, examine them along with the other village papers.
Vaccinifer's name.
16. The new method, lately introduced, of showing in the vaccinator's Register the name
of every child from whose arm lymph is taken, and those
vaccinated from any particular child, is, I consider, a great
improvement. We can now trace the history of our lymph, for months back, without any
difficulty. By this means we will be able to convince parents (who are so ready to point
to vaccination as the cause of all diseases, which may affect their children for the next year)
of their error in laying the whole blame on diseased lymph. In November last a case was
reported to me by Mr. Crowe, the Second Assistant Collector of Sholápur, in which the
parents of a child, belonging to Hipargí, alleged that an eruption, which was at that time
over the body, had appeared shortly after vaccination. No description was given of the
erruption, but as Mr. Crowe considered it to be a suspicious case, I requested that the matter
might be minutely inquired into—writing out some few leading questions to which I desired
answers. The result of further inquiry was, that the village authorities asserted to Mr.
Crowe that the child had never been vaccinated; and I expect that this is correct, because
both the vaccinators in the Sholápur Táluká state that they had not vaccinated any chidren
in Hipargi since they went to the táluká. I suggested to Mr. Crowe that it would be
advisable to send the child to the Civil Surgeon for examination, and I am sorry that this
was not done; as then the real character of the eruption would have been known, and all
doubt or prejudice, which might have arisen in the eyes of the Natives, would have been
removed. The parents, I think, must have had some motive for making such a statement.
Vaccinators to live in different
villages.
17. Vaccinators are, as a rule, in the habit of living in one village during the whole
year, and only vaccinating in those villages to which they
can go and return on the same day. On this account
many of the outlying villages of the táluká were seldom
or ever visited, simply because the vaccinator found it irksome to remain away from his
house for a few days at a time. In order to remedy this, I have issued orders to all vaccina-
tors that they are to spend three months of every year in four different villages within the
táluká, and that every village, without exception, must be visited once every 18 months or
two years. The Deputy Superintendent's will be hold responsible that these orders are
carried out.