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Prisoners, Police and Dispensary patients, furnish three sources however, which would
provide reliable data, and with obvious restrictions would serve to supply the want. If, there-
fore, every person coming for advice to any Government Dispensary were examined and report-
ed on, as regards this particular, on a given day, and the state of the Police down to the
village Chowkeedars was also so reported on, much valuable information on important pdints
could be gained. As regards prisoners, if a similar examination were required, it might be
instituted. It is believed that a record has for some time been kept in every Jail in Bengal
which will serve to furnish most valuable evidence on the point. It is most desirable that,
from this record, a statement should be furnished, prepared in a tabular form, and including
the results available for each year, up to the end of 1868. In the case of prisoners and
Dispensary patients, Medical agency could be secured for this investigation, and the data
collected would be of a reliable nature.
Exact information regarding both the direct and
indirect mortality from inoculation, and more pre-
cise particulars regarding the practice is desirable.
34. The information we possess regarding the practice of small-pox inoculation in
Bengal is not only very scanty, but it is at the same
time very defective in several important particulars :
exact statistical information is much wanted. With-
out such guidance, very much uncertainty regarding
its fitness, must be inseparably connected with every measure which may be proposed, to
place the population on a better footing as regards small-pox.
Reliable information regarding the percentage of direct mortality among inoculated
persons, in different parts of the country, should be at once collected.
The investigation should also embrace an enquiry into various other particulars, regard-
ing the practice of inoculation; as for instance into the subject of the usual characters which
the secondary eruption presents, and the course that it most commonly runs. An attempt
should also be made, with care, to discover the frequency or otherwise with which small-pox
spreads from inoculated persons in the different districts.
Proposal for a Medical Commission to collect
precise information regarding inoculation.
35. As the data collected about the practice of inoculating, with regard to occurrences
taking place during the course of its performance,
would be confessedly defective as regards trustworthi-
ness, when culled from the reports of the inoculators,
it would be highly advantageous to supplement such information on a small scale, by evidence
collected in an irreproachable manner. A special Commission of Medical men appointed to
collect the information required seems to be the simplest as well as the most reliable method
of securing such evidence. Any such Commission acting as a body in one part of the country
would prove to be expensive and cumbersome.
It is proposed, therefore, that half a dozen districts should be chosen, and the Civil
Surgeons be invited to become Members of such a Commission, to watch the inoculation which
takes place nearest to them. The selected stations should be at considerable' distances one
from the other; so that the results arrived at may be taken to represent fairly the general
average throughout Bengal. That such Commissioners could watch the whole of the inocula-
tions in the neighbourhood of their stations for the whole season is not to be expected. A few
hundreds, carefully tabulated, would suffice, and the general aggregate would be large enough
to serve as a trustworthy guide. If each Civil Surgeon who was chosen were to devote a
week to the enquiry, the days in which he was thus employed being scattered over a longer
period, the information required could be obtained.
General mode of working which such a Commission
should pursue.
36. The general mode in which such a commission might work would be as follows:
two or three inoculators who were about to conduct
their operations within a few miles of the Civil
Surgeon's residence, would require to be gained over,
and their assistance secured for the purposes of the enquiry. A Native Doctor, or other
subordinate, who could write the Vernacular, would be sent with the inoculator to fill in the
names and other particulars, into a form provided for the purpose. When the inoculation was
at its height, the Civil Surgeon might compare the names and results tabulated for him, with
such inoculated persons, and thus satisfy himself of its correctness. After some days he might
again inspect each individual, to satisfy himself of the general condition of the survivors, and
to make sure that no deaths in excess of those reported by the Native Doctor had taken
place. Besides this, he would have to take measures, to keep himself informed regarding any
cases of spontaneous small-pox which might occur afterwards. With such data each Member
of the Commission could furnish a report on the inoculation he had witnessed, and the
President might furnish a general summary of the whole, with a report, embracing the various
points brought out by such enquiry, for the Government.