2
primary vaccinations in that district, and that, while the work was on the whole excellent,
he found that several of the vaccinations had been unsuccessful. There is evidently
need for closer scrutiny of vaccination results on the part of Civil Surgeons. Out of the
total number of operations inspected by these officers during the year, 98.66 per cent.
were found successful, but there is reason to believe that in many instances the results
of these inspections were misleading, only successful cases having been brought
before the Civil Surgeons for examination. The Sanitary Commissioner has now
issued instructions to Inspecting officers, which, it is hoped, will result in the vaccina-
tors' work being more effectively tested in future. At the same time the result of
Dr. Stephen's own inspections leaves no doubt as to the generally satisfactory character
of the work, or as to the efficacy of the lymph supplied from the Shillong depôt. It
is to be regretted that the attempts to carry out vaccination with fresh lymph have
again failed. Mr. Cotton cannot accept as sufficient the explanations offered for this
failure, namely, the difficulty of obtaining calves, and the prejudices of the people, and
he believes that these difficulties may be overcome as they have been elsewhere by the
exercise of tact and perseverance.
Arm-to-arm vaccination was carried out in 3,277 cases in Sylhet, and in 7 cases in
Goalpara, and is reported to have been successful in all the cases.
4. The proportion of the population successfully vaccinated during the year was
4.67 per cent., against 4.57 per cent. in 1896-97. The number of infants under one
year of age successfully vaccinated shows a satisfactory increase from 45,865 to 58,455.
During the calendar year 1897, 163,617 births were registered in Assam, and in the
Census Report of 1891, the number of children under one year of age was stated to be
191,720. The proportion of infants successfully vaccinated was thus 35.72 per cent. of
the registered birth-rate, and 30.49 per cent. of the estimated number of infants available
for vaccination.
5. The Compulsory Vaccination Act was brought into force in the Nowgong Munici-
pality on the 7th April 1897. Notwithstanding this increase in the areas in which
vaccination is compulsory, there was a decrease in the number of vaccinitions in such
areas from 4,152 to 3,487, a result which is unsatisfactory and is not explained. It is
possibly due to the difficulty which was felt, after the earthquake, in municipalities
more than anywhere else, of carrying on regular work in all departments. It is
observed that only 365 persons were successfully vaccinated in the Sylhet Municipa-
lity, as against 559 in 1896-97, and that, although 470 notices were issued, not a single
prosecution was instituted. The Chief Commissioner desires that the penal provisions
of the Act should be discreetly and moderately, rather than strictly, administered, but
he finds that in the Sylhet Municipality, in the face of a very imperfect system of
vaccination, there have been no prosecutions since 1892, and the inference is irresistible
that the provisions of the law have been applied with undue leniency. 'The Deputy
Commissioner must carefully avoid indiscriminate prosecutions, which are only
calculated to excite public opinion against vaccination, but when there is so much
undoubted neglect in the matter, the law must not be allowed to remain a dead letter.
These remarks are applicable to most of the towns in the province where the law is in
force, and especially to Dhubri, Golaghat, and Jorhat.
6. The number of recorded deaths from small-pox in the eleven towns in which
Compulsory Vaccination Acts were in force was 29, or 0.41 per 1,000, as compared with
a death-rate of 89 per 1,000 in the ten towns in which vaccination was compulsory in
1896. The corresponding figures for the province as a whole were 1.08 and 1.09 per
1,000, respectively. As in the preceding year, the highest death-rate occurred in the
Lakhimpur district, where the proportion of persons protected by vaccination is largest,
but in view of the small number of persons protected by successful vaccination in the
province, no relation can be established between the small-pox death-rate and the
amount of protection afforded in each district.
[True Extract.]
F. J. MONAHAN,
Offg. Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam.
A. S. P. O. (Genl.) No. 140—225- 24-6-98.