CALCUTTA AND THE SUBURBS.
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drawn to the most necessary points on which legislative assistance was required. Among
these the necessity for early notice of each case of small-pox as it occurred being furnished to
the Superintendents of Vaccination and the necessity for some restrictions being placed on
persons with small-pox to prevent them disseminating the disease to those around, were
prominently dwelt on. As yet no steps have been taken to remedy the dangerous position of
Calcutta which was then brought forward, and in spite of a whole special report having been
devoted to the subject, the city remains in the same precarious condition in both respects as
it did during the thirty-four years, upon the recorded deaths from small-pox during which I
founded the remarks I had to make.
It has once fallen to my share to direct the operations of a vaccine establishment,
through such a catastrophe from small-pox, as to make me shrink with no ordinary feeling
of dread from having such a task to perform again. With the remembrance of the close
on 3,000 deaths from small-pox which took place in February and March 1865 yet fresh
before me, I may be permitted to urge in the most forcible terms that the necessity for
legislation is one that urgently calls for attention. To illustrate the want which exists
I bring forward a few of the instances with which this year has supplied me, in the hope
that by having such instances before them the Government may be in a position to
realize the danger in which Calcutta lies, and to feel that the remedy suggested is the
only one to meet the exigencies of the case.
Two cases illustrative of small-pox spreading to
a second person for want of early notice to the
Vaccine Establishment.
6. A syce in Dalhousie Street had this year an attack of small-pox, and before it
was found out that he was affected he had communi-
cated the disease to another syce.
A woman named Bindoo Beharry residing in Palmer's Lane, Entally, went to Chander-
nagore to see her daughter who had small-pox. On her return two days after leaving her
daughter the fever of small-pox appeared and subsequently a confluent eruption was developed.
She had communicated the disease to a child of eight before it came to light that she was
suffering from small-pox and steps could be taken to prevent its spreading.
Other instances of small-pox imported into
Calcutta.
7. Two children residing in the Baniapooker Thannah were taken to a village named
Punchna in the Selamabad Thannah in the Burdwan
District. They got an attack of fever just before
they returned, and soon after their arrival in Calcutta
the eruption of small-pox appeared. It could not be traced how they caught the disease, but
as they had to pass through country where inoculation was going on, and had come in contact
with persons who could so infect them, it is not difficult to understand how they became
affected.
A child from the village of Jabatty in the Monghyr District was brought to Sealdah ;
four days after its arrival in Calcutta small-pox appeared on it. The disease was reported to
have been raging in the village when the child left.
An inhabitant of Kidderpore went to his village in the Khanakool Thannah in the
Jehanabad Sub-division. While he was there his family were inoculated. On the 13th day
of the inoculation he returned to Calcutta, and three days after his arrival he was seized with
the initiatory fever of small-pox and subsequently the eruption developed itself.
The wife of a European living in Entally was seized with small-pox, but the source of the
disease could not be traced.
A lad of fourteen living in Armenian Bazaar also got an attack of small-pox, the origin of
which could not be traced.
Case exemplifying the necessity for a law to
enforce isolation.
8. A syce in the employ of a gentleman living in Dalhousie Street caught small-pox from
another syce whose case is the first one that has
been brought forward. Every endeavour was made
to induce him to go to hospital, but he steadily
declined to do so. Instead of isolating himself he went to a densely inhabited quarter and
took a hut among a low class population, very many of whom were in an unprotected condition
and who gave great trouble before they allowed themselves to be vaccinated.
Such an occurrence as a servant refusing to go to hospital is not uncommon, it is also
usual for them to hire a hut or a portion of a hut for a trifling sum and to set themselves
down in a crowded locality to be the centre from which outbreaks of small-pox become
disseminated. Servants are not the only class who thus become wilfully dangerous. It is
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