ANNUAL VACCINATION REPORT OF THE PROVINCE OF ASSAM
FOR THE YEAR 1881-82.
Plan of the Report.
1. IN preparing this report I have followed the plan I adopted last year,—that is,
I have summarised the reports of the district Sanitary
Officers, following each district in the same order, and
setting forth the work and success of the vaccinators during the season. Further, in a
series of tabulated statements in the body of the report, I have illustrated the work done
and the agency employed throughout the Province.
Total number of operators and total amount
of vaccination work done in the Province
during 1881 82.
2. I have endeavoured to render Table B, Dispensary Vaccination Statement III.,
appended at the end of this report, as complete as possible.
The different classes of operators and the figures are so
tabulated that it may be seen at once the amount of work
done by each class of operator in each district throughout the Province. There are 36
vaccinators attached to 16 dispensaries, and, including ex-inoculators and dispensary staff,
there were in all 178 operators. The total number of persons vaccinated during the
season 1881-82 under review was 40,309, against 24,167 of the previous year. Of the
total 40,309 persons vaccinated, 39,128 were primary vaccinations, and of these 34,698
have been reported as successful. There were 1,181 re-vaccinations, and of these 1,118
were successful. The total percentage of successful primary vaccination was 88.67, that
of re-vaccination 94.66.
Total work during the year under review
compared with previous years.
3. Table B., Statement IV. in the appendix, compares the total primary vaccina-
tion work done in the Province for the past seven years with
that of the present year, and it shows a greater amount of
general vaccination work done by a total of 9,701, including tea-gardens, than in any
previous year.
Total vaccination work among tea-garden
populations during the season.
4. The table further shows, so far as the returns have been rendered, the total
amount of vaccination work performed among the tea-garden
populations throughout the several tea districts in the
Province, viz., a total of 5,102. The vaccination work on tea-gardens has not, however,
been previously shown in this statement; but, even if we exclude this work from the total
primary vaccination work of the Province, we still find the work done during the season
under review to exceed that of any previous year and that of the season, 1880-81, by
14,965. But vaccination work in this Province slides up or down in accordance with
the number of ex-inoculators employed, and these chiefly in the Kámrúp district. For
example, in 1880-81 there were only 40 ex-inoculators at work in this district, but during
the season 1881-82 there were 76 men employed, and this increase was apparently made
without sufficient reason; and as we have not the agency for supervising them, so large
a number should not be engaged. However, if we exclude the work of tea-gardens and
the entire work of ex-inoculators from the general vaccination work of the Province
during the last season, we find a total increase, by the dispensary staff alone, of 7,736
vaccinations over and above either the last or any other previous vaccination season.
Vaccination agency in the Province of
Assam, shown in Statement I.
5. Agency.—During the season under review the agency of vaccination was increased
and 36 vaccinators were employed, against 17 of the previous
year. But in some of the districts there was much delay in
obtaining efficient vaccinators, and in no instance was the increased staff ready for work
at the commencement of the vaccination season. A similar delay, it is hoped, will not
arise again, especially as Civil Medical Officers and Deputy-Commissioners are now fully
alive to the readiness by which any reasonable proposition for an increase of vaccinators
will be met. To this point the especial attention of Civil Surgeons has again been very
recently drawn, and I hope no impediment will be allowed to stand in the way of an early
commencement of vaccination work in the forthcoming season. Civil Surgeons are
reminded that they should anticipate the work before them, and be quite prepared to
begin by the 1st October. In paragraph 3 of the Report of 1880-81 I pointed out to
them how entirely the success of vaccination work in this Province depended on their
zealous and determined efforts, and that without those efforts the work could not be other
than fruitless. To this appeal there has been, I am pleased to record, a general and
hearty response, and I look forward to further zealous efforts and more successful results
in future.