17
I could tell easily, from week to week, the time they give their lymph to mature, and be
in a position to point out more particularly any want of proper attention to the subject.
Animal Lymph.
11. During the monsoon while at Ratnágirí I endeavoured to establish animal vaccina-
tion, but I am sorry to say the attempt failed. I
inoculated most carefully two calves with lymph received
from the Local Superintendent, Bombay, in tubes; but the result in both cases was nil. In
one of the calves there was a slight appearance in the case of one of the scarifications inocu-
lated with a tube of lymph Sub-Assistant Surgeon Anantá Chandrobá stated he had received
from Dr. Warlomont of Brussels, but it was unfruitful as regards lymph.
12. I received a few tubes of animal lymph, once removed, from the Local Superintend-
ent of Bombay, which resulted most successfully on use. I entrusted its care to Assistant
Vaccinator Ganpatráo Haribá, of the Chiplún Táluká, Ratnágirí Zilhá, a careful and success-
ful vaccinator, having seen, myself, the first vesicles resulting from it, and since then I have
been able to distribute it in whatever cases I thought the lymph required renewing. These,
however, were very few, for although I hold that lymph is very often enhanced in efficiency
by renewal from the original source, I do not deem it advisable to repress that which is still
giving true Jennerian vesicles, and in consequence I but used the lymph where I thought the
vesicles inefficient.
13. Seven tubes charged with vaccine lymph supplied by the Privy Council, were for-
warded to me for trial by the Superintendent General of Vaccination, the result of the use of
which I here give in detail. Three tubes were forwarded with Superintendent General's letter
No. 778 of 1872-73, dated 4th of November 1872, which I used myself on two children on the 11th
of the same month. Six punctures were made on each child, three on either arm; but though
used most carefully, when the children were seen again on the 18th, or 8th day, there was no
sign whatever of the lymph having " taken ". The four other tubes forwarded with Super-
intendent General's letter No. 934 of 1872-73, dated 3rd January 1873, were used by the As-
sistant Superintendent of the Kolábá Zilhá, Mr.Bálu Chálká, on January 9th,on five children,
making six punctures on four, three on either arm, and three punctures on one. On the four
first children vesicles appeared, five on one, four on the second, three on the third, and one on
the fourth ; and on the fifth child operated on one vesicle appeared. The vesicles on the first
three children were very good, and the lymph from them was further extended by means of
tubes; the two vesicles on the last two were small, and their lymph was not further used.
14. While on this subject I may state, as I have had occasion to do before, that in
maintaining the good lymph the vaccinators have much to contend with in the opposition they
meet with in selecting their vaccinifers. Every case does not show sufficiently good vesicles
from which to extract lymph, while those which bear such a character are often debarred
from the vaccinator by the refusal of parents to allow their children presenting such vesicles
being made use of as vaccinifers. Bearing this in mind, and witnessing, as I have often done,
how extremely prejudiced the people generally are, I am often surprised to see, and not a
little puzzled to understand, how the vaccinators, with such odds against them, manage to
get through the quantity of good and protective work they do, and still maintain the prophy-
lactic innocent of communicating any evil consequences in its transmission. This would be
no matter for surprise were the selections untrammelled; but made as they are, when the well-
fed and well-cared for children of the better classes are altogether, I may say, shut out from
the roster, I think, I may advance, as some evidence of the keen attention, as a rule, paid to
work by the vaccinators, the absence of any accusation as to their operations producing ill
consequences. One case was reported to me, it is true, from Rohá Táluká, Kolábá Zilhá, and
bore so much of likelihood in the way the matter was put to me, that I at first was convinced
of its truth ; but a subsequent personal investigation exposed to me the fact that I had jump-
ed at a hasty conclusion, and further that I had yet much to learn of the ingenuity with
3 VAC