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lymph is naturally repugnant to high-caste Hindus, who will
not, in many instances on any consideration, allow their children
to be used as vaccinifers.
(2) The sufferings of human vaccinifers are obvious.
(3) The objection to the use of human vaccinifers on account of the possi-
ble risk of spreading infectious or hereditary disease. This
risk is not as great as it is thought to be, but it is one of the
most powerful arguments brought forward in the phillipics of
rabid anti-vaccinators.
I have already addressed the Government on this subject, and suggested, for
the above reasons, that vaccination be performed in future with bovine lymph
only. It is, however, impossible to supply the necessary quantity in tubes from
the central depôts at Calcutta and Darjeeling, and it has been calculated that to
establish the nine more depôts that would be required of the approximate power
of the Calcutta depôt would cost about Rs. 1,02,500 per annum, which at once
puts the idea of a depôt supply out of the question. The solution of the diffi-
culty, however, as I have pointed out in the separate communication referred to,
lies in the adoption in Bengal of the Punjab and Central Provinces system of local
calf (buffalo or cow) vaccination, i.e., of vaccinating the people direct from their
own calves in their own villages. The system is- very simple. A calf is
procured through the village headman (as a rule for nothing, though from
8 annas to one rupee per calf may sometimes have to be paid) and is in-
oculated with lanoline lymph, obtained from one of the depôts, on its abdomen,
which must of course be first washed with soap and water, and then shaved
by the vaccinator. From this calf all the village children are vaccinated,
as well as a calf from each of the neighbouring villages, which are brought
in for the purpose and returned to their owners immediately after inocula-
tion. When the lymph is ripe on these calves, which is usually on the
sixth day after inoculation, the vaccinators proceed to the villages and vac-
cinate from the calves all the children of those villages, as well as fresh calves
from other villages. In this way animal vaccination is spread throughout the
district, and the evils of arm-to-arm vaccination are avoided. No harm is
done to the calf, which requires no particular care during the period the lymph
Is ripening on it. Although there seems to be no prejudice in Bengal to the use
of bovine lymph prepared in the central depôts, there may at first be some
opposition on the part of the Hindus to seeing their sacred animal, as they
may suppose, tortured for the supply of the required lymph. But the experience
elsewhere shows that when they actually see that the operation causes no pain,
and when after a little experience they come to realize the great advantages of
animal over human lymph, they will readily aid the proposed system. The
Government have sanctioned its introduction experimentally during the
approaching cold weather in a dozen districts, which I am now engaged in
selecting for the approval of Government. I am also having experiments con-
ducted in goat and sheep vaccination which it has occurred to me might be
substituted for calf vaccination. If the results are successful, as they so far
promise to be, all difficulty on account of religious prejudices will be removed,
and we will have a system of vaccination at once cheap and popular among all
castes, and thus eminently suitable for India. I will submit a special report
to Government on this subject in due course.
Animal Vaccination Depôts.
15. There are, as stated in the previous paragraph, two animal vaccine
depôts in the province—one at Calcutta and the
other at Darjeeling—from each of which lymph is
Supplied only on application. The Calcutta depôt, which has been in existence
many years, serves the districts of the Presidency, Burdwan, Chota Nagpur,
Dacca, Chittagong, and Orissa Divisions. It also supplies calves for vaccina-
tion to the Calcutta Municipality, the Presidency Jail and hospitals, the lunatic
asylum, the garrisons at Fort William, Barrackpore, and Dum-Dum, and other
public and private institutions, and to private individuals in and around
Calcutta, who may apply for calf vaccination at home. The Darjeeling depôt
Serves the districts comprised within the Rajshahi, Bhagalpur, and Patna Divi-
sions, and was established towards the end of 1891, in accordance with the
wishes of the Government of India, who were desirous that the work of animal