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suggested that they (the District Board) should pay the cost of vaccinators and
contingencies. They promised to consider the matter, and I have just received
a telegram from Dr. Banks, the Civil Surgeon, informing me that they
have provided Rs. 850 for free vaccination during the approaching season.
This is very encouraging, and I have no doubt that if the matter were properly
explained to other District Boards, they would follow the good example of
Puri.
Local aid.
17. As a rule local aid, whenever applied for by Civil Surgeons and the
subordinate officers of the Vaccination Department,
is willingly rendered by the local authorities, viz.,
Magistrates, Subdivisional Officers and the Police; but with no legal power it is
very difficult, and in some instances it has proved impossible, for them to do
anything. As Magistrates rightly observe, vaccination is not compulsory in rural
areas, and there is no law under which vaccination fees are recoverable. How,
then, are they to force the people either to accept vaccination or to pay up the
vaccinator's fees when persuasion fails ?
Difficulty in realizing fees.
18. This has become a most serious matter, and is undermining the whole
system of licensed vaccination in Bengal. In the
district of Tippera alone the unrecovered, and
apparently unrecoverable, fees of the season 1892-93 amounts to over Rs. 600 !
I am in communication with the Magistrate on the subject; but, judging from
the correspondence which has taken place, I do not think it will be possible
to recover much, if anything. In almost every district there are unrecover-
able vaccination fees, which is very discouraging to the licensed vaccinators,
and tends to their overcharging unsuspecting individuals, and operating only
on those who can and will pay. For instance, in Krishnagar, which I recently
inspected, I found a large number of indigent mehters, who had never been
vaccinated. If the system of licensed vaccination is to continue, it is impera-
tively necessary that something should be done to meet this difficulty.
Dr. Gregg, the Sanitary Commissioner, has already written so much on the sub-
ject, both in connection with the reorganization scheme and in every annual
report on the working of the Department, that it is not necessary for me to say
more here except perhaps to draw attention again to the fact that it is not worth
the vaccinator's while to institute proceedings in a Civil Court for the sake of
2 annas in each case. The people know this and take advantage of the
knowledge. The vaccinators, on the other hand, get disheartened, and either
strike work, as they have actually done in many parts of Orissa, or work in the
unsatisfactory manner explained. The result is that the general work of the
Department suffers, and vaccination gets a bad name.
Unlicensed vaccination.
19. This growing practice is also doing incalculable harm to the cause
of vaccination, and I would again earnestly recom-
mend the Government to put a stop to it by legal
enactment. It may be argued, as I believe it has been argued, that, as far as
the general public is concerned, the practice of unlicensed vaccination can do
no harm beyond engendering a false sense of security. But it does more than
this. It creates a feeling of discontent and insubordination among regular
licensed vaccinators, and is generally prejudicial to the interests of the Depart-
ment. Why should a man, it is argued—and I think not unreasonably—furnish
a money security deposit and subject himself to the stringent rules and regula-
tions of the Vaccination Department, when he sees that an unlicensed person
can earn nearly as much as he can without being subject to any rules or autho-
rity or supervision whatsoever? An unlicensed vaccinator, who is usually a dis-
missed employe of the Vaccination Department, is by the nature of his work
obliged to carry out his operations by stealth. He cannot wait for the proper
maturing of the lymph in the vesicles of the vaccinifers, but must use it whenever
he can get it, irrespective of its age or quality; also he constantly uses crusts.
These methods of carrying out vaccination are not only unscientific, but also
fail in affording protection. One of the most important points in arm-to-arm
vaccination is to ensure that the lymph is of the right age. After the seventh
day the lymph in the vesicles, which was previously translucent, gradually
assumes a yellowish tint, due to the formation of pus (matter) in the lymph;
this change in the lymph is due to the presence of a microbe called the strepto-
coccus pyogenes, If vaccination is carried out with such purulent lymph,
D