49
increasing knowledge of, and acquaintance with, the subject, the results would go on
improving. The lymph, however, continues to be as capricious in its effects as before.
What appears to be excellent lymph and derived from a genuine-looking vesicle often fails.
Not that this failure is complete. Out of some 10 or 12 vaccinated, perhaps one or two
only take, and then only in one or two places; but the lymph from these vesicles is as
effective as could be desired. In other instances, what appears to be indifferent lymph, from
dried-looking vesicles, proves successful in every case in which it is used. Why this is so
I have not been able to ascertain; nor would I be in a position to do so satisfactorily till I
shall have had an opportunity of personally seeing and watching every case operated upon
with this lymph. Then only can any deductions be drawn, and any systematic rules of
practice, based on scientific principles, be framed for future guidance. Compulsory vaccination
and inspection alone can assist us in this respect. In the meantime it is enough for the
authorities to know that an experience of 28 months has fully convinced me that animal
vaccination has done a great amount of good to Bombay, and is capable of doing the same,
almost to an unlimited extent, in future ; and that it has become a necessity which cannot at
all be dispensed with.
9. All opposition to the use of animal vaccine lymph, from every quarter, has
completely ceased; and all receive it not quietly but eagerly—a tacit acknowledgment of
its superiority. Scarcely a single European child is vaccinated except with animal lymph.
Supply of Animal Lymph from
Dr. Warlomont, of Brussels.
10. During the year under report Dr. Warlomont, of Brussels, was kind enough to send
me three supplies of animal lymph, of 12 charged
points each. I am sorry to say that, unfortunately, none
of them proved successful; though all the three supplies
that were received from him through Dr. Blanc, in the year preceding the one under report,
had proved successful. The comparative smallness and insufficiency of the municipal grant
for animal vaccination compelled me to use this lymph in heifers, a part of whom was
inoculated at the time with fresh lymph, as it was difficult to spare separate ones for this
lymph alone. I do not, however, believe that this circumstance had anything to do with
the failure. I have, however, carefully secured some points, and, so soon as the small-pox
season is over, mean to use this lymph in a heifer by itself.
Small-pox.
11. We are now in the midst of a terrible epidemic of small-pox—extending over the
entire length and breadth of the Islands of Bombay and
Kolábá. It commenced in February, since which time
it has made a rapid progress, and has already numbered hundreds as its victims. Severe as
the epidemic of the last year was, that which is now prevailing is more terrible still; and by
its having suddenly appeared simultaneously in all parts of the island, has stunned the com-
munity so much as to render the greater part of them unfit to take any action. The state to
which some of them have been reduced brings to my mind with increased force every word
that I wrote in the 4th para. of my last report. From the 1st April 1871 to the 31st March
1872,1,213 persons died from small-pox; of whom nearly one-half died within the last three
months, viz., 63 in January, 162 in February, and 376 in March. The following tables show
the number of deaths from small-pox, with reference to castes and localities, during the
present epidemic, from the 1st of January :—
10 V R