6
CALCUTTA AND ITS SUBURBS.
been protected from small-pox, equally take up the time of the vaccinators with endless
excuses, as the poor and ignorant, who, though living in Calcutta, have only recently come
from places where they had never heard of vaccination.
I have, in my report on the subject of making vaccination paying throughout Bengal,
laid it down as a standard that 280 vaccinations per month may be considered the fair
average work of each vaccinator on a large establishment. Working with the very same
men and the very same superintendents in Calcutta, I can equally affirm that such an
average is absolutely unattainable in this city. It is important that this should be noted,
as my experience has not been simply with a similar class of vaccinators, but with identi-
cally the same agents; and with this to guide me, I am prepared at any moment to send
the present Calcutta establishment into the Mofussil, and over a series of years to work
them up to the standard which my previous experience teaches me I can reach. Not
only can a vaccinator never overtake the same number of operations in Calcutta as in the
country around, but the head vaccinators will never be able to supervise the same number
of vaccinators, nor the superintendents the same large establishment that they can guide
efficiently in the country. A superintendent, hunting in the lanes of Calcutta for single
vaccinated cases, can never overtake from sunrise to sunset the numbers that can be
seen easily in a forenoon in the country; and not only so, but a vaccinator, when all his
work can be so easily got at as it can in the Mofussil, does not need nearly so much looking
after as he requires in a large city where any of his misdeeds can be so easily concealed,
and where he must be supervised from week to week, if not from day to day.
Even the circumstances of different cities are so varied that the work in them cannot
be compared with any prospect of arriving at an exact estimate of how the establishment
is working. Take Bombay, for example, where I am told crowds flock to vaccinating stations
where a calf is used to vaccinate from—a proceeding that would drive Calcutta into rebellion
if forced upon it, and instead of attracting crowds to a vaccinating station, would repel all
from resorting to it: or to take Madras, where the attraction of a few handsfull of rice
brings a crowd of applicants for vaccination—an inducement which would hardly tempt
the poor of Calcutta to walk across the streets for the benefit, as they can get it at any
native house they ask for it, without having the trouble of being vaccinated.
Compared with Lon-
don
It is hardly consistent with the above arguments to adduce the comparison of the
cost of vaccination in Calcutta with that of public vaccination in London; but as no exact
deduction is asked to be made from it, it perhaps is permissible to bring it forward to prove
that the cost in Calcutta is not so excessive as it might at first sight seem to be. V. R.
Chapter LXXXIV provides that a payment of one shilling and six-pence at least shall
be payable to every public vaccinator for each case of successful vaccination, while not less
than, two shillings and three shillings shall be payable for vaccinations over one mile and
over two miles distance from the vaccinator's residence. Besides this, additional payments
are sometimes sanctioned, so that if two shillings be assumed as the average cost of vac-
cination in England, the Calcutta cost, as judged of by a European standard, will not appear
very excessive. In connection with the above it deserves to be borne in mind that, not
only is vaccination in England compulsory, but that children must be vaccinated when they
are very young.
Main cause of higher
cost of Calcutta
vaccination.
The opposition met with from the lower classes in Calcutta is of a much more vigor-
ous nature, as a rule, than the opposition met with in rural districts which are much more
amenable to reason; and as Calcutta bazaars require much more vigorous action to be taken to
ensure their being vaccinated, the proceeding consumes time and costs money. The un-
principled masses that crowd the Calcutta bazaars fear neither God nor man, and arguments
which weigh with other people tell nothing on them. The pressure I put on them is as
great as can with safety be applied; again and again I have to restrain both superin-
tendents and vaccinators to prevent collisions with the people; but whether I increase
the pressure in one case, or diminish it in another, I confess I am influenced by more
important considerations than the circumstance that the vaccinations are costing a
shilling a piece, or that they entail a disbursement of even six pence more. The one aim
is to get every one protected, cost what it may, and to do so without bloodshed, or having
the vaccinators up in the Courts, which the people know very well are ready to protect
them from undue interference. If ever a vaccinator got killed or disabled owing to my
having driven a difficult bazaar into desperation, or had the population of even a single
bazaar been taught by our Courts that they had only to resist long enough, and the vaccinators
would have to retire defeated in their object, it would be a source of very little consolation
to feel that the price of each vaccination had been lowered if the injudicious pressure had led
to both results. I am sure that the Government would be the first to deprecate such un-
warrantable rashness, and feel confident that when it is known that the heaviest amount of
pressure consistent with that amount of safety which is indispensable, is being applied, the
mere extra cost of a vaccination, which in itself is not very high, will not be looked on as a