( 3 )
for, and arrangements were made for retaining in the villages the list of vacci-
nations performed in order that inspecting officers might test it, the Sanitary-
Commissioner still omitted to lay before Government the facts which furnished
a clue to the whole difficulty. The Lieutenant-Governor trusts that Dr. Gregg's
successor will take this matter vigorously in hand and will lose no time in
putting a stop to a dishonest practice which makes it impossible to obtain a
true view of the working of an important department.
6. Secondary operations.—The number of secondary operations rose from
14,888 to 67,955, or by 53,067 cases. Of these, 38,732 occurred in Calcutta,
30,674 in the operations carried on by the Corporation, and 8,058 in those
conducted by the staff of the Government Animal Vaccination Depôt, which
performed 8,140 secondary operations against 82 in the previous year. The
latter figures have been included by the Sanitary Commissioner in the
returns of rural areas which, apart from this, show an increase of only 525.
In mufassal municipalities and dispensaries there was an increase of 13,810
cases, so that the entire increase is practically divided between these agencies
and Calcutta.
7. Vaccination at the expense of District Boards.—The contributions made
by District Boards for the purpose of giving free vaccination in rural areas
rose from Rs. 654 to Rs. 1,690, of which Rs. 324 were spent in Tippera,
Rs. 241 in Gaya, and Rs. 1,125 in Puri. In Tippera the number of successful
operations increased from 48,917 to 57,302, and in Puri from 16,401 to 19,527,
while in Gaya there was a slight decline. The Lieutenant-Governor hopes that in
districts or parts of districts where the licensed system fails to make way among
the people the District Boards will lend aid by contribution so far as their
resources permit.
8. Cost of vaccination.—The following statement shows the cost of vacci-
nation in Bengal during the last two years as distributed between Government,
District Boards, Municipalities, and Native States:—
Paid by Government ... ...
District Boards—
Rural areas
...
... ...
Municipalities ... ... ...
Municipalities—
Calcutta ... ... ...
Mufassal
... ... ...
Native States ... ... ...
Total ...
1893-94.
Rs.
1,44,723
654
351
15,495
17,658
1,319
1,80,200
1894-95.
Rs.
1,55,096
1,690
...
18,642
18,208
1,582
1,95,218
The average cost of each successful operation to Government or to local
bodies was 1 anna and 6 pies against 1 anna and 7 pies for the previous year.
9. Death-rate from small-pox and proportion of population protected.—The
number of deaths from small-pox during the year 1894-95 was 9,562, or 1.3 per
ten thousand of population, as compared with 12,499, or 1.7 per ten thousand
in the preceding year. In the following districts, which return the highest
death-rate, the proportion of the population protected by vaccination is also
low:—
DISTRICT.
Calcutta ... ...
Cuttack ... ...
Faridpur ... ...
Monghyr ... ...
Puri
...
...
Midnapore ... ...
Protected
per
10,000.
1,400
1,000
1,900
1,600
1,200
1,600
Death-rate
per
10,000.
23.0
7.1
4.5
4.3
2.5
2.3
Darjeeling, with half the population protected, had no deaths, and Chitta¬
gong, with 4,700 protected per ten thousand of population, had a death-rate
of 0.2. In the case of Chittagong, however, it is doubtful whether the statistics
of the earlier years of the period on which the calculation of protected persons
is based can be accepted as correct. In paragraph 40 of the report of the
Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal, the small-pox mortality of the year 1894
(.11 per thousand) is stated to be the lowest on record, but the statistics show
that in the three years 1886, 1887, and 1888, the death-rates from this cause
were .06, .05, and .09, respectively.
10. Methods of vaccination.—Three methods of vaccination are now prac-
tised in Bengal,—(1) with vaccine lymph taken direct from the calf, (2) with