2
Primary vaccinations performed
by the District Staff.
6. It is very gratifying to observe that in the year under report the
number of primary operations increased in all the
settled districts of the Province with the exception of
the Hazara District, the most noticeable increase being in the Peshawar Dis-
trict. In the Hazara District the descrease is described as due to want of
energy on the part of Municipal members, lambardars, zaildars and others.
The Deputy Commissioner is, however, moving in the matter. The total number
of successful primary operations amounted to 82,159 showing an excess of 20.82
per cent. over the figures of the previous year.
Re-vaccinations performed by
the District Staff.
7. There has been a falling off in the number of re-vaccinations which
is most noticeable in the Kohat and Bannu Districts.
In the former it is generally attributed to apathy and
inefficiency on the part of the Native Superintendent of Vaccination who has
since been reduced to the grade of vaccinator and in the latter to unavoidable
changes in the vaccination establishment.
Appendix to Statement No. I.
Vaccination in Political Agen-
cies.
8. The total number of vaccine operations in the Political Agencies was
9,406 as compared with 10,127 in the previous year,
the decrease being due to very much less work having
been done in the Sherani Country where only 1,306
operations were performed against 4,972 in the previous year. The vaccinator
responsible for the small amount of work done in that country has since been
reduced and transferred from there. A falling off is also noticed in the work
done in the Chitral Agency which is attributed partly to possible carelessness
and inexperience on the part of the two Chitralis who have been trained as
vaccinators and whose work could not at all times be closely supervised through
unavoidable causes, and partly to the delay that occurred in vaccine lymph,
despatched from the Lymph Depôt, reaching distant villages. The Chitralis,
it is understood, have taken kindly to vaccination and it is hoped that,
with greater efforts and closer and more careful supervision, better results
in the coming vaccination season will be obtained.
On the other hand,
it is satisfactory to note that the two agencies of Kurram and the Tochi
show a considerable increase in the amount of work done. In the former
more vaccination work was done than in any year since the formation of
the Province probably because 1909 was a particularly favourable year for
vaccination owing to the prevalence of small pox. Apart from this, there is
a tendency on the part of the villagers in Kurram and even across the border to
view inoculation with disfavour owing to the evil consequences resulting from
this method. In many instances trans-frontier people brought their children to
be vaccinated and in others petitions asking for the services of the Government
vaccinator were received. In one case a leading Syed inoculator had his own
children vaccinated. This purely voluntary coming forward of the people of
Kurram is a stronger argument in favour of vaccination than could be adduced by
statistics. In the latter agency also the attitude of the people towards vaccina-
tion has considerably improved, only one case in which hostility to the Govern-
ment vaccinator was shown having come to notice. During the autumn an
epidemic of small-pox broke out in and around Dir and at the request of the
Nawab of Dir, made to the Political Agent of Dir, Swat and Chitral, two vacci-
nators of the District Staff were deputed to work in the Dir Territory. They
vaccinated 480 people of whom 187 were females.
Appendix to Statement No. I.
Vaccination in Cantonments.
9. There has been a satisfactory increase in the number of operations per-
formed in the Cantonments of Peshawar and Nowshera
which entertain their own vaccinators, the figures being
2,764 and 1,052 against 2,386 and 481, respectively, in the previous year. As
already stated in paragraph 3 of this Report the post of vaccinator attached to the
latter can onment was abolished by the Cantonment Authorities with effect
from the 30th November 1909. In each of the Cantonments of Abbottabad,
Kohat and Mardan the services of the vaccinators of the District Staff were
utilized, but not so in the Cantonments of Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu. In the
former vaccination work is done by Regimental Medical Officers and their subor-
dinates and in the latter there is no civil population.