3
Cost per successful case.
14. The cost, per successful case, amounted to 2 annas against
2 annas 5 pies in the previous year, the total number of
successful operations having been 92,311 against 72,351
in the preceding year.
Statement No. III.
Dispensary Vaccinations.
15. Of the 2,845 operations performed by Civil Surgeons, Hospital
Assistants and Compounders, 2,270 were done in the
Chitral Sub-Agency, 546 at the Khyber Rifles Hospital
at Landi Kotal and 29 at Peshawar by the Civil Surgeon.
This is a great improvement on the previous year.
Statement No. IV.
Comparison of work done
during the last seven years.
16. It will be seen that the work done in the year under report was
better than in any of the preceding years with the excep-
tion of 1904, in which year small-pox prevailed in a wide
spread epidemic, and the people were in consequence
more eager to be vaccinated.
Statement No. V.
Inspections made by
Civil Surgeons, Native
Supervisors and Divisional
Inspectors.
17. Inspections made were as follows :—
1904-05
1905-06
By Civil Surgeons.
7,304
6,182
By Native Supervisors.
58,039
68,321
By Divisional Inspectors.
23,528
34,390
The above figures show that, while there was a falling off in inspections
by Civil Surgeons, there was a large increase of this work done by Native
Supervisors and Divisional Inspectors.
With all due deference to Lt.-Col. V. Harington's remark in the last
portion of para 14 of his Annual Vaccination Report of this Province for
1904-05, I cannot agree with him that "the more time a Civil Surgeon can
spare for vaccination inspection work the more will be done. ”
Having had nearly 25 years experience of the working of vaccine
operations in India, I am firmly convinced that vaccination inspection work
can be, and often is, very much over done. The constant harrying of women
and children with the object of inspecting vaccination work done is one of
the best means of making vaccination unpopular among the people. In the
course of conversation with Natives of India, when trying to impress on them
the benefits of vaccination, it has often been pointed out to me that one of the
principal objections they have to allowing their children to be operated on is
the trouble and inconvenience their females and children are put to afterwards
by inspecting officers.
Here is an instance in point :—In a certain village, a number of
children and infants are collected at a convenient spot, often on a perishingly
cold day, and all are vaccinated. Five days afterwards the mothers have to
take all these children again to the same spot to be inspected by the vaccinator,
who has to report on the success or otherwise of the operations. Within a
month or so the Native Supervisor arrives and all the children are again hauled
out for inspection. A little later on the Divisional Inspector visits the village
and the same process is gone through. But the trouble is not over even now.
Later on the Civil Surgeon arrives and insists on again inspecting those
children and the last straw is reached when the Administrative Medical Officer
turns up and once more wishes to see them all. All this puts the children and
their mothers to the greatest inconvenience and I am convinced tends to make
vaccination unpopular.
If Civil Surgeons and the Administrative Medical Officer must inspect
Vaccination work, I consider they should be content with seeing just a few
cases at each village or town they visit and should not insist on all the vacci¬
nated children being turned out.