NOTES ON THE STATISTICS OF VACCINATION IN BURMA FOR THE YEAR 1900-01.
3
There was much difficulty in obtaining calves ; consequently the break in the
supplies of lymph to which this gave rise proved very inconvenient and dis-
appointing to District Officers. Owing to these unsatisfactory results the aunggyi
depôt has been closed and the establishment transferred to Rangoon where the
lymph supply of the province will be manufactured until specially constructed
buildings have been erected at Meiktila, or other convenient station where an ade-
quate supply of calves can uninterruptedly be obtained.
To ensure success the Vaccine Laboratory must be constructed on sanitary
principles on the same lines as a modern hospital, where the principles of aseptic
surgery have to be rigidly adhered to.
Plans of the building required are being drawn up by the Public Works De-
partment, and the necessary plant has been ordered from England.
At the Rangoon Depôt glycerinated lymph was manufactured to the extent
of 47 ounces, sufficient for about 60,000 operations, and issued in compressible
leaden capsules and glass capillary tubes. That sent out in the leaden capsules
was of a strength of 1 in 3, equal parts of vaccine, glycerine, and distilled water.
The capillary vaccine was of the strength of 1 in 6, namely, 1 part of vaccine, 2 of
glycerine, and 3 of water.
The difficulty hitherto experienced in the filling of the tubes has been over-
come by the use of a little vulcanized rubber "vaccine expeller." This little in-
instrument is for driving the lymph out of the tubes without the application of the
lips of the Vaccinator; by reversing the action the glycerinated lymph can as
easily be drawn into the tube, and even without previous practice an assistant
can with it fill from 80 to 100 tubes in a quarter of an hour. Capillary tubes can
be rapidly and accurately filled, and the method is a great improvement on that of
drawing up the vaccine by suction with the lips.
" Husband's " capillary tubes, which are of very small calibre, have been
substituted for the large tubes as used at the Local Government Board Vaccine
Institute and the Jenner Institute in London. One of these tubes holds enough
vaccine for eight or nine operations. They are more easily filled and are more
convenient for the public vaccinator, operating upon a number of children at one
time.
Stetement II. The total cost of the Vaccine Depôt at Rangoon amounted to Rs. 2,057, of
which Government paid Rs. 881. The Municipality have proposed that Govern-
ment should relieve them entirely of the maintenance of the depôt.
At Taunggyi the cost amounted to Rs. 1,386.
District work throughout the province was, as far as possible, carried on with
prepared animal lymph, but owing to the depôts failing to meet demands arm-to-
arm vaccination had at times to be resorted to.
Attitude of the people.
9. Inoculation is carried on throughout Burma and Civil Surgeons gene-
rally report passive opposition to vaccination in favour
of inoculation as the attitude of the people.
There is no law to touch the inoculator outside Municipal areas, and since
the courts have ruled that inoculation is not an offence under section 269 of the
Indian Penal Code the inoculator drives his trade with impunity and, working side
by side with the vaccinator, often forces the latter out of the field, thus keeping
up a perpetual source of infection. Considering the gravity of the evil, it is, I sub-
mit, a fair case for the Government to interfere and, in the interests of the common
good, to suppress the inoculator.
RANGOON
:
The 21st June 1901.
C. C. LITTLE, COL., M.D., I.M.S.,
Superintendent-General of Vaccination, Burma.