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a capacity for improvement in either, or that their characters are such as to entertain a hope
of their ever becoming useful vaccinators.*
Assistant Superintendents.
7. This year Assistant Superintendents, selected from amongst the vaccinators,
have been tried for the first time, and the result has
been such as to quite justify, I think, the re-organisation
that admitted of such appointments. I have found the aid they give in the supervision
of the Vaccinators most useful, more particularly as regards the quality of the lymph being
used, which cannot, in my opinion, be too often seen and examined. Their utility, too,
in testing the accuracy of the returns, I have had some opportunities of witnessing;
but where they show to most advantage and render most valuable assistance is when
an outbreak of small-pox threatens any of the Districts. A recent outbreak of this
disease in the Tháná Collectorate exemplifies what I say, and the good and efficient
service rendered at the scene of the outbreak by the Assistant Superintendent, Mr.
Máhádeo Vináyak, mainly conduced to confine it to the immediate locality where it ap-
peared. A similar service was rendered by the Assistant Superintendent for the Kolábá
Zilhá, Mr. Báláji Chálká, who by his energy and forethought, confined an outbreak of small-
pox that might have developed into a serious epidemic to very narrow limits and eventually
stamped it out. Mr. Bálájí Chawán, of the Ratnágirí zilhá, would have done similarly effi-
cient service had such an occasion presented itself. The summary of the employment return
which accompanies this report gives in tabular form the amount of work performed for the
five months before the close of the year, during which they were actively employed ; but the
statement can give but a very faint impression of the real utility their active supervision
over the Vaccinators has been, or the amount of security such supervision guarantees for the
performance of effective and good vaccination. Such information can no more be gathered
from any form of tabular statement than can the amount of real work the Superintendent
himself performs in advancing and rendering popular the cause of vaccination within the
confines of his Circle.
Lymph and Vesicles.
8. The lymph in use throughout the year was reported good on all sides, but I have
seen myself, while on tour, one or two instances where
I could not consider it so. In the cases I here refer to,
the lymph showed a tendency to mature too early, and the vesicles it produced were very
small though characteristic This degeneration, I believe, to have resulted through careless-
ness in extracting the lymph from an over-ripe vesicle, and I pointed out this fact where
necessary, and endeavoured to thoroughly impress the vaccinators with a proper sense of the
care and caution that ought to be used when taking lymph, and demonstrated, as well as
I was able, the best mode of applying such care and caution. The lymph on the whole was,
I consider, good and possessed unimpaired its prophylactic properties, and also gave rich vesi-
cles of the characteristic type. Where there was a tendency to degeneration, I believe it
was not so much due to any impairment of the lymph itself, so much as to the improper
handling it was submitted to.
9. While on the subject of lymph it may not be out of place to here state the difficul-
ties that every day, and in every place, are being thrown in the way of obtaining it. They
are becoming many and serious, and without in the least wishing for myself the invidious
term of prophet of evil, I have no hesitation in saying that in time they will very materially
almost vitally affect the supply of it, if some means be not taken to enable the vaccinators
to overcome the present objections to allow of lymph being taken from mature vesicles. I
do not know what may be the feeling in other Circles on this subject, but in this I know
there is a very strong one indeed, and one that has grown apace within the last three years.
People readily enough get their children vaccinated, but any attempt to extract the lymph
* These two Vaccinators have since been removed from the Vaccination Department.—P. S. T.