REPORT
ON THE
EMPLOYMENT OF SUB-ASSISTANT SURGEONS AS SUPERINTENDENTS
OF VACCINATION.
Reasons for submitting the report.
1. From time to time Sub-Assistant Surgeons have been employed in various capacities
in the Vaccine Establishment under different grades,
and on various occasions opinions adverse to their
employment have been put on record.
Repeatedly it has been brought to the notice of the Government of Bengal that the
Sub-Assistant Surgeons employed in the Presidency Vaccine Establishment have discharged their
duties as Superintendents of Vaccination not only faithfully, but with energy and ability, and
three of those at present in the establishment have received the thanks of Government for
the efficient manner in which they have discharged their duties. Sub-Assistant Surgeons
have also been employed in vaccinating in Bengal who have not been attached to the Gen-
eral Vaccine Establishment, and they have failed, more or less, to perform what has been ex-
pected of them.
As it is judged to be of considerable importance that this class of officers should be
employed as Superintendents of Vaccination, the following report is presented with the view
of assisting the Government under these complicating circumstances to arrive at somewhat
definite conclusions.
Nature of the duties of a Superintendent of
Vaccination.
2. The duties to be performed by these Superintendents are by no means easy ones.
They are sent among a population who know nothing
of vaccination and are told to vaccinate them. The
people among whom they are to work hold very fixed
beliefs regarding protection from small-pox, one portion of the population for long ages having
been accustomed to protect themselves by means of inoculation, while the other have been
accustomed to refuse such protection. Among a simply indifferent population rapid progress
might possibly be made without great difficulty by only making known the benefits to be de-
rived from the practice of vaccination. Among a rigidly prejudiced population the case is
far different, and difficulties are met with in each separate village, in some cases in every hut
even in the village. Those who inoculate refuse vaccination, as they have every confidence
in their own form of protection, and as they have been accustomed to employ certain religious
rites in connection with the practice, they find it all the more difficult to adopt another form
of protection. Though in itself inoculation is not a religious act, yet its performance has
always been so much mixed up with religious ceremonies as not to render it easy for them
altogether to disassociate it in their minds from the idea of religious observance. Then, again,
those who have determined not to practise inoculation, but have on system resolved to trust
to the goddess of small-pox sending them a spontaneous attack in a mild form, also have
religious feelings brought into play when they are asked to avail themselves of the alterna-
tive protection afforded by vaccination, and oppose those attempting to overcome their
scruples with a tenacity which is most surprising.
When these two classes have been persuaded one by one, or village by village, as the case
may be, very many of those who were most energetic in refusing vaccination will doubtless
from the force of habit be just as zealous in seeking for vaccination when it is placed within
their reach, but even among these there is a class, and a very large one, by whom great
trouble will be occasioned when nothing more than apathy prevents their coming forward
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