14
DARJEELING CIRCLE.
as to seriously affect the average of the whole season. Unsuccessful however as they were,
they had some effect in checking small-pox in several different places; but it is hardly fair to
vaccination to go on performing it at such seasons, as those in whom it failed will not be
convinced they have not been protected, and if afterwards affected with small-pox, will assist
in spreading reports unfavorable to vaccination, which will be only too eagerly adopted by
inoculators and the large class of persons who view everything proceeding from the Govern-
ment with suspicion and distrust.
I visited Dinagepore in the end of September, in the hope of being able to see the cases
operated on, but failed for want of elephants, the places being unapproachable by any other
means. The Deputy Superintendent, who visited one of the affected places, represented his
journey there as accomplished partly by walking, partly by swimming, and unsafe for one
man from the number of crocodiles.
At the beginning of the cold season small-pox was present in at least four different
thannahs, in all of which it was suppressed by December; but it was re-introduced from the
Purneah district into Hemtabad, one of the western thannahs adjoining Purneah, in
February, and was again checked, only to recommence in distant parts of the same jurisdic-
tion, and in Maldah. Steps were taken to meet it wherever it appeared, and the Chooramun
zemindar was requested not to carry on the inoculation he was desirous of doing. So far as
I learned, there was no inoculation practised in Dinagepore during the year except in two
places by men from Rungpore. Getting early information of their work, the resulting small-
pox was easily dealt with. I cannot state the number of inoculators in this district, but I
believe they are numerous.
9. Maldah and Purneah.—The two districts of Maldah and Purneah were not taken
up, the sanction for the establishment not having been received till the end of the season.
Arrangements are being made for native Superintendents for them, but I find that no men
on the Superintendent-General's establishment in Calcutta, whom I was anxious to have, will
come for service in the mofussil. The Darjeeling circle being malarious in many places,
Bengallees from other districts are unwilling to serve in it.
10. It will sufficiently appear from what has been stated before that the practice of
inoculation, which was in abeyance for three years after the establishment of the Darjeeling
circle of vaccination, is now again being carried on with great activity, and that the inoculators
are not merely satisfied with performing their own operation, but are in open opposition to
the one the Government is desirous of introducing. They practise it too in the most reckless
manner without the slightest attempt to prevent the inoculated mixing freely with the general
population ; and I have not seen inoculation practised any where during the last season without
being followed by small-pox. I have also seen a good many severe cases of small-pox in
inoculated persons, and I am satisfied that the operation is very frequently little better than
the production of an inflamed sore, and is not, as has been stated, a more certain operation,
or one that affords better protection, than vaccination.
It is hard to understand why the Government of Bengal does not by legislation restrict
the practice which, in my opinion, as at present carried on, is a monstrous evil, and can be
used as a terrible means of revenge.
Inoculation could be practised in places set apart by Magistrates of districts, the inocu-
lated strictly isolated until after recovery; all their clothes used when the subjects of the
disease destroyed, and inoculators held responsible that their patients submit to rules laid down
without in any way interfering with that bugbear, the liberty of the subject. The liberty of
the subject, as at present interpreted by inoculators, is little better than the actual power of
spreading disease and death far and wide over the country. It would be no curtailment of
this imaginary possession of every British subject to enact that he shall not be permitted to
affect his neighbour with a loathsome and deadly disease.
I reckon that the inoculators in the Darjeeling circle are to the vaccinators as 20 to 1 ;
but their work is carried on so irregularly and carelessly as to be a constant source of danger
to the public health, the amount of protection they really afford being as nothing when
compared with the amount of disease they propagate.
11. The idea of forming protected areas by vaccination so as to convince the people of
its benefits, must be abandoned until such time as the vaccinators can be massed and allowed
to work for a sufficiently long time in one place so as to create such an area. The distances
at which they are placed, and their constant movement on account of small-pox, prevent its
possibility; all that can be hoped for is the suppression of local outbreaks of small-pox, and
to accomplish this it is necessary that the police be coerced to afford instant information of
the practice of inoculation or the presence of small-pox.