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The immense superiority of vaccination over inoculation, as a means of preserving public
health, may be accepted as a dogma at which no one can reasonably cavil. In now having
to bring forward the question of the regulation of inoculation, I would carefully guard
against being misunderstood on this point. I conceive it to be the duty of the Government
to spend every thousand Rupees that can possibly be secured on vaccination, and by every
means to encourage the adoption of this method of protection. But when all this has been
done there yet remains much undone, and hence further action of some sort is necessary.
Question of Vaccinating Bengal.
10. The Government have already before them a scheme which I proposed, for ultimately-
furnishing vaccination to the districts surrounding
Calcutta. The fixed annual cost of the establishment
proposed was Rupees 25,380 per annum. Besides this, other expenses would have to be
incurred. The population of these districts may be estimated at five millions. With the
establishment asked for, this entire population could never be effectually overtaken.
If the population of Bengal be estimated at 40 millions, eight times such an Establish-
ment would in like manner never be able completely to vaccinate Bengal, and keep it protected;
and it may be confidently affirmed that an annual expenditure of Rupees 2,03,040 would not
suffice to provide vaccination for Bengal. It is open to question whether, with such an
expenditure, even a remote approach to the amount of protection from small-pox due to inocu-
lation already existing in Bengal would ever be attained through vaccination.
In the course of time very large tracts of Bengal could not only be vaccinated, but be
made to pay for their vaccination, even when conducted by public establishments. Before, how-
ever, any population can be made to defray such a charge, it must be taught to become familiar
with vaccination; to have confidence in its protection; and to feel that it is worth paying for.
Such an education is a work which can only be accomplished by time. The difficulties
in the way are real ones, and though by energy and determination they may be overcome,
many decades will have passed by before the result is achieved. The real commencement of
this work has not been begun, and unless it is quickly undertaken, on a large scale, the first
ten years of the next century, will find but little advance made over the corresponding period
of this one; a hundred years will not have sufficed to accomplish anything towards making
Bengal a vaccinated country.
CHAPTER II.
Arguments for and against Inoculation.
One-sided nature of the arguments in favor of a
universal abolition of inoculation.
11. A very simple plan of dealing with the question of inoculation has been advocated,
and very many well meaning members of the Civil
and Medical Services have urged on Government the
necessity for abolishing the practice of inoculation
altogether. To any one possessed of more than a superficial knowledge of the subject, and
especially to those who are personally familiar with instances of the more successfully con-
ducted operations of inoculators, the arguments of such writers must always seem one
sided, and as such open to grave objection. The devastations caused by small-pox amongst
large populations are alone before the eyes of the reporters while they make such representa-
tions ; and conscious of the fact, that in individual cases within their cognizance, inoculators
had done much mischief, they write with warmth and energy. To get rid of the evils of
the practice, they would prohibit that the good which may be derived from it should
continue to be enjoyed by those among whom no evil results have been brought to light.
Arguments deducible from the experience of
inoculation in Great Britain.
12. In support of such a prohibition of inoculation, it has been argued that in Great
Britain the mortality from small-pox was in no way
lessened, but rather increased by the practice of inocu-
lation. So far as I can gather, the direct mortality
in Britain among those inoculated, seems to have exceeded a quarter per cent., but to
have been much under a half per cent. With proper precautions I believe an equally favor-
able result may be attained in Bengal. That inoculation did not succeed in diminishing the
mortality in England is not to be wondered at, considering the open violation of every
element of safety involved in the manner in which it was conducted.