(14)
More attention, however, is now being paid to dispensary vaccination,
and Hospital Assistants understand that neglect of this part of their duty
will be visited with severe punishment.
Small-pox.
12. Small-pox has been very prevalent throughout the province since
January last; and during the official year from
the 1st April 1882 to 31st March 1883, (the
period for which this report is written), there have been 1,910 deaths. The
epidemic appears to have prevailed with unusual severity not only all over
India, but over the greater part of the world. In India the epidemic, to
judge from newspaper accounts, has been most severe, and it will be
interesting when the annual mortality figures are published to test and
compare the efficiency of vaccination in each province with the history of
small-pox.
The distribution of the epidemic from the 1st January to 31st March
by districts has been :—
Amraoti ... ...
Ellichpur ... ...
Basim ...
573
232
19
Wun
...
Akola
...
Buldana ...
16
344
449
Energetic steps were taken in each district to check the progress of the
epidemic by pressing on vaccination in and around those villages first affect-
ed, but the disease quickly spread though not in any very great severity,
save in a few towns where difficulty had been met with in carrying on
vaccination.
The disease still prevails, and is increasing in the Basim and Wun Dis-
tricts, so that the history of the epidemic of 1883 cannot be gone into and
compared with the statistics of previous years as a test of the benefits of
vaccination until the close of the year, when it will be considered in the
Sanitary Report.
This epidemic of small-pox has done much to impress upon the people
the benefits of vaccination ; for the protection afforded by the operation has,
in so many instances, been so self-evident, where successfully vaccinated child-
ren living in the same house and in daily contact with other children
suffering from small-pox have experienced a perfect immunity from the
disease, that numbers heretofore sceptical have been convinced. In some
instances children that had been vaccinated also suffered, but in no case did
the disease prove fatal. In the town of Anjangaon, in the Ellichpur District,
it was reported that four children who had been vaccinated died from small-
pox. On enquiry, however, their names could not be found either in the vil-
lage or the vaccinator's register, in which had they been vaccinated they
would have been shown.
Superintendents were instructed to lose no opportunity of pointing out
to the people the comparative immunity of the vaccinated children, and how
that those who did take the disease suffered from it very mildly as compared
with the unvaccinated.
On several occasions during my tour I was able by ocular demonstra-
tion to prove to large gatherings the protective influence of vaccination, and
I have no doubt but that the obviously beneficial results of vaccination
which this epidemic has so clearly proved will go far towards removing the
prejudices of the people, and popularizing the operation.
Attitude of the people.
13. No active opposition is experienced in Berar. The lower classes
are amenable to reason and persuasion, and a
vaccinator working with tact and care will sel-
dom meet with any difficulty which his Superintendent cannot assist him in
removing. As has been stated in previous reports, Brahmins, Rajputs,
Marwadies and Mahomedans are the most difficult to induce to get their
children vaccinated, but their opposition is generally passive and often ends
in their carrying away their children secretly to some other town or village