42
cicatrices were small, and he had entirely neglected to vaccinate Dheds and Bhaugís ; con-
sequently a great number of unprotected children were inspected in those castes.
From Junágad I went south to Mangarul. Here the state of things was painful in the
extreme. Since my visit between three and four years age no one had visited these parts;
during my two and a quarter years' absence from Káthiáwád no Superintendent had been
near the táluká. The last vaccinator had been transferred to another station because he
quarrelled with the Darbár; the man before him had been dismissed, and then reinstated
and appointed to another station, by Dr. Blanc.
I found that the Darbár and people had lost all faith in vaccination, and no wonder
about 2,000 people had died of small-pox, although there had been a resident vaccinator ;
but many of the children vaccinated by him showed no marks at all, and two or three
hundred that he is stated to have vaccinated, had died of small-pox.
I visited one gaum, Shápur, in which every human creature under 20 years of age was
down with small-pox ; and though it was only three koss from Mangarul, the vaccinator had
never even visited the place. After some difficulty I got the Darbár to agree to all the
children in the town of Mangarul being vaccinated, and then and not till then they were to
form their opinion of the efficacy of vaccination. While I was encamped at Mangarul an
event happened which greatly facilitated this object. The kámdár had two children, one
a few years old, the other a few months; the former had been vaccinated, the other not. The
new vaccinator Pránlál, whom I had brought with me, had advised the kámdár to have
his youngest child vaccinated ; he said he would when the child was a little older. Pranlal
told him, he had better have it done at once, else his child would catch small-pox and die
like most of the other children in the town. The next week the child sickened, and when
I left had confluent small-pox ; the protected child was not attacked. To ensure the chil-
dren being vaccinated quickly and well, I placed an umedwár at Pránlál's disposal, and also
sent an Assistant Superintendent to see that good lymph was introduced, and that the work
was carefully performed. Yesterday I received Pránlál's and the umedwár's return ; they
had succeeded in vaccinating 280 children in March, so I hope they will succeed in stamp-
ing out the disease.
In March I travelled round by Navíbandar, Porbandar and Máhádápur. The march-
ing here is most difficult, what with the mouths of large rivers and the sheet rock ; four
kos a march is the utmost the carts can get over ; the rock is cut into deep ruts, and most
dangerous for horses. One river was so broad I was all day getting my kit over.
For the above reasons I suppose the Porbandar and Bhánwad men had not been in
the habit of going to these parts, as I found several gaums had never been visited.
The Porbandar (Ganárám) man's work, what he had done, was pretty good, but his
vesicles were small. He had not vaccinated the low castes, or visited the out-of-the-way
villages in his charge. Some of these villages cannot be visited except in boats (which
means of conveyance a vaccinator has not at his command) till March, and then you have
to wade through one or two miles of water up to the saddle girths.
The Bántwá (Haríbháí Narbhairám) man's work was much the same as Porbandar ;
very few low caste vaccinated, and his outlying villages not visited.
The latter part of March I continued in a westerly direction, and examined the Bhán-
wad (Digámbar) man's work, which was very bad. He had vaccinated very few, his per-
centage of successful cases was comparatively small, and for two years he had not visited
his distant gaums, although only about 20 miles from his home. I found also at one
gaum that he had taken money from the parents of children he had vaccinated.