18
SONTHAL PERGUNNAHS.
As regards the amount of work done, the returns speak for themselves. Considering the
smallness of the staff and the difficulties which had to be met, both the amount of work
done, and the percentage of success obtained, have actually been great; and I have no
hesitation in saying that they will stand a very favorable comparison with the results in
other vaccine circles in Lower Bengal.
Whilst the work of vaccination was thus being carried on by the whole of the Sonthal
Pergunnah vaccine staff in the distant district of Rajmehal, the same kind of work was also
done in the district of Deoghur under my immediate supervision, but by an altogether
different kind of agency.
For a long time it had been my endeavour to make vaccination an institution of the
people themselves in the Sonthal Pergunnahs in the place of inoculation. The transition
from the prophylactic practice of inoculation to that of vaccination appears to be an easy one;
but to help this gradual progress, especially amongst a people full of prejudices strengthened
by religious bigotry, requires great care and tact. It was therefore with great interest and
pleasure that I watched during the last vaccine season the carrying on of the work of
vaccination throughout the whole of the Deoghur district by the old Brahmin inoculators of
the place, a result which I had been trying to bring about for several years past.
The work was commenced in the month of January, and was pushed on with vigor till
the end of April, when owing to the setting in of the hot weather, it was naturally stopped.
How the various inoculators came to me one by one and took away vaccine crusts from me,
and how gradually even the most bigoted classes of the people submitted to be vaccinated
by their own inoculators, have been described in my dispensary report for 1870, to which
therefore it is only necessary to refer to avoid repetition. Suffice it therefore to report here
that no less than twenty-three Brahmin inoculators applied to me and took away vaccine
crusts between January and April. By these, with the exception of three who could not
start any operation owing to the lateness of the season, when they made up their minds to
follow the example of the others, the work of vaccination was carried on more or less vigor-
ously all over the Deoghur district. The result has been that no less than seventy-nine
villages have received the blessings of this prophylactic measure, and no less than 5,322
children have been placed under its protective influence. The best feature, however, of it is
that the greatest amount of work has been done in the villages and amongst the bigoted
people where my advances in former years were most obstinately resisted. Thus, two
Brahmins attached to the temple of Deoghur vaccinated 1,818 children in the town itself and
in the villages in the immediate neighbourhood, and three others vaccinated 1,287 in the
town of Rohnee and its neighbourhood. Rohnee is the head-quarter town of the talook of
that name, and the work there was started, through my persuasion, by the grown-up married
daughter of the Ghatwalin—the heir presumptive to the property—setting the example to the
others by getting herself vaccinated first.
The operations were done solely from crusts, frequent supplies of which I had to obtain
from the Superintendent-General of Vaccination at Calcutta, and from my Deputy Superin-
tendent at Rajmehal.
The inoculators came to me whenever they wanted a fresh supply of vaccine crusts, and
they regularly brought to me their periodic vernacular returns. In fact, from the regularity
with which they did their work and carried out my orders, it would almost appear as if they
were paid servants of Government.
I have inspected the work of these men at some places, but the inspection has not
been complete, partly from want of time, and partly as I did not think it advisable, in this
the first season of the work, for me to appear constantly personally in the midst of their
operations, for I wanted this to be accepted at first by the people as an institution of their
own and of their priests, instead of anything that they had to submit to by my order. But
I had the operation watched all the same, and from what I have seen myself and heard from
villagers and others, I have good reason to be satisfied with the result with but slight
exception.
The inoculators like the work, because it is less troublesome and less risky than inocu¬
ation, and the people themselves appeared to be satisfied and happy.
Further comment on the success of the experiment is, I think, unnecessary. The result
speaks for itself. I shall therefore conclude by remarking that whilst 6,454 children were
vaccinated in seventy-six villages in the Rajmehal district during seven months by
whole of the Sonthal Pergunnahs vaccine staff paid by Government, amongst the bigoted
people in the Deoghur district the operation of vaccination was introduced into seventy-nine
villages, and 5,322 children vaccinated without any expense whatever to Government.