10
generally considered unhealthy, and which has frequently to account for vaccinators absent
on " sick leave," so that no difficulty might be experienced in filling up a temporary vacancy.
This proposal is meanwhile under the consideration of the Superintendent General of
Vaccination.
Raghunath Trimbak, Local Fund Vaccinator of Bagalkot, had to be fined one month's
pay for entering false names in his register.
Hanmant Bhawanrao, Local Fund Vaccinator of Ron, tendered his resignation, and a
new candidate, Malhar Mahadeo, has been appointed on 14 rupees a month.
One death during the year is recorded—that of Tukají Amrít, Vaccinator of Gadhing-
laj ; in his stead, one Joti bin Kedari has been appointed on 14 rupees per mensem.
Leave.
20. Applications for leave are far too frequent, and a bad feature in the case is that
not a few vaccinators have been in the habit of taking
the rules into their own hands, by fixing their own
date, and taking the sanction for granted, so that before reference can be made to this
office, and thence to the Superintendent General for his sanction, the term of leave applied
for has well nigh expired. Instructions by Circular have been issued that any vaccinator
leaving his táluká without leave from this office will be liable to dismissal from the
Service. The work is sometimes seriously impeded on this account, and, besides, it is difficult
to procure a substitute whose fitness for the work is known to the Superintendent.
Lymph becomes exhausted.
21. In many cases vaccinators fail to keep up a continual supply of lymph. Some
of them work in a very irregular manner—wandering
from one corner of the táluká to another, instead of
carrying on their operations and in this way their fresh lymph too, from village to village in
succession. Thus their lymph supply becomes exhausted by their being unable to overtake
some of the new work they have spread over the táluká.
Hindrances.
22. Without question, vaccinators in this Circle have to contend with a great deal of
discouraging opposition, physical as well as otherwise.
Reports have been frequently received of their inability
to carry forward their work : in some cases they have been beaten back from villages they
wished to enter ; the news spreads from village to village that the vaccinator is coming, and
forthwith children are disposed of in various ways, to evade any interference on the part of
the vaccinator. Such hindrances, if they be so great as they are stated to be, tend to weaken
the vaccinator's hands, and to impoverish his returns; so that really where he can get work
to do he is apt to operate to the discredit of vaccination by considering the quantity rather
than the quality, and this, because he is expected during the month to return a certain
number of operations. It is my opinion that to fix a certain figure up to which vaccinators
must operate monthly, or run the risk of being fined, is injudicious, and not calculated to
secure the entire benefits to be derived from really good vaccination.*
23. It is very clear there are difficulties to be overcome which only a Compulsory Vaccina-
tion Act is able to meet, at least until the spread of education shall have brought the people
generally to appreciate vaccination. To many, even now, it seems to be a wilful interference
with the established course of things to attempt to thwart the inflictions of a righteous god-
dess, upon whose good graces the people rely more than on any new-fangled " Firanghi"
invention. They laugh and jeer disparagingly, as I have occasionally myself witnessed, with
not a little venom, when I have been carrying on village inspections, and some well-to-do
and influential villagers have gone so far as to denounce the whole thing as a farce.
* This should on no account be done. See para. 21 of Superintendent General's Report.—P. S. T.