8
THE METROPOLITAN CIRCLES.
operation. I should feel disposed to include the cases which occur early amongst the doubt-
ful cases, thus raising this class from 9 to 22, and exclude the 117 cases altogether from the
calculation; as, had they been seen earlier, the success of the operation might have been
determined; the protective power of vaccinia is not annulled by injury after the twelfth day.
Excluding these 117 cases we have—number vaccinated, 20,882; number of points,
83,098; cases successful, 20,833; points successful, 82,533; percentage of successful cases,
99.76; percentage of successful points, 99.32.
Such is the result of my own inspections; and the percentage of success in these cases,
and in the general return appended hereto, is almost the same,—99.76 and 99.75. I there-
fore accept the numbers in the general return as correct.
25. Assistance given by Government servants.—Great assistance is often given to the
vaccinators by the inspectors of police and other Government officials, who, being for the most
part better informed than their neighbours, possess some influence over them, and induce them
to accept vaccination either by their example in having their own children vaccinated, or by
precept. Great assistance was rendered in this way to the vaccinators when first working at
Bankipore by Baboo Chundernath Chatterjee, sub-inspector of police. Baboo Juddoonath
Doss, sub-inspector of police at Dum-Dum, was also very useful to the vaccinators ; and Baboo
Pran Bullub Roy, sub-inspector of police, Tababareah thannah, went in person from house to
house and persuaded the people to give up inoculation and take to vaccination. At other
times they are as prejudiced as their neighbours, and oppose our work. I found a chowkeedar
at a village near Kishnaghur who had prevented one quarter of the village from being
vaccinated, persuading the people to inoculate, as he intended to do. I succeeded in inducing
him to have his children vaccinated, and this was done in my presence. After this the greater
part of the people yielded. In the Ooriaparrah thannah they sided with the people against
the vaccinators, and but little could be done there.
26. Reports of small-pox.—Thirty-three reports of the outbreak of small-pox have
been received since I have received charge of the circles, affecting forty-five villages. Of these
forty-five villages small-pox was found to exist in thirty-three, in nine the disease proved to
be varicella, and in three the report seemed to be unfounded. In the thirty-three villages in
which small-pox was found, 204 persons were ascertained to have been attacked; of these
32 died. In thirteen villages extensive vaccinations were performed around the infected
persons, and the spread of the disease was arrested; in three the previous labors of the
department had left none unprotected, and in seventeen the people were protected by
previous inoculation. In twenty of the thirty-three villages infected by small-pox, the
disease could be traced to inoculation having been practised ; in three cases to contact with
a patient suffering from small-pox; and in ten cases the origin of the disease could not be
discovered.
27. I have mentioned incidentally in another paragraph of this report that the
systematic vaccination of the three circles is much interrupted by sending vaccinators off in
different directions to arrest the progress of small-pox. Just as virus is plentiful and vacci-
nation proceeding satisfactorily, men are sometimes thus called off and the regular work
delayed, yet such calls cannot be neglected. At any sacrifice, we are bound to stamp out
small-pox wherever it makes its appearance, and such calls have invariably been attended to
the detriment of the more regular work of protection. It would be a great boon if a small
extra establishment were allowed for this especial service. I would suggest one head vacci-
nator and six ordinary vaccinators. These could at any time be sent to an infected district
without interfering at all with the regular vaccinations carried on by the gangs of vaccina-
tors, and, when not wanted for their special duties, could be attached temporarily to one
or other gang and aid them in their work.
28. Inoculation.—In the course of my inspections of vaccination I came across persons
who had recently been inoculated, and from them I learnt something of its results. The people
are very shy of showing the inoculated children. Amongst the precautions which custom and
religion enjoin on the inoculated, there is one prohibiting the visits of strangers except in per-
fectly clean garments, and after sundry ablutions and purifications. Even their co-religionists
are thus to a great extent kept away, and the Christian would have great difficulty in obtaining
admission to a village. If as a result of inoculation the patient dies, becomes much dis-
figured, loses an eye, or any other mishap occurs, it is ascribed to some wilful or involuntary
neglect of these ceremonial observances, and hence they all strive to keep away. Another,
perhaps less powerful, motive is the belief that inoculation has been forbidden, and that they
may be punished for practising it, and that I am specially opposed to the practice. I had,
however, in March an opportunity of seeing a few. These had been inoculated more than a
month before I saw them, and in one village most of them were convalescent, and had but