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ence to Dr. Bennett's report that small-pox inoculation was carried on in the
districts of Kangra, Hoshiarpur, Shahpur, Dera Ismail Khan, Muzaffargarh,
and in the Sirmur State. I would suggest the extreme desirability of put-
ting a stop to this practice, as there is no doubt that it is the cause of widely
disseminating small-pox and greatly aggravating the natural prevalence of that
disease.
Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in the Home Department,—No. 3273,
dated 14th October 1880.
READ—
Report on Vaccine Operations in the Punjab during the year 1879-80, by Surgeon¬
Major J. Bennett, Officiating Superintendent-General of Vaccination in that
Province.
Letter No. 3409, dated 27th September 1880, from Surgeon-Major H. W. Bellew,
C.S.I., Sanitary Commissioner in the Punjab.
OBSERVATIONS.—As the above Report has been referred to and com-
mented on by the Sanitary Commissioner, who will, from the commencement
of the present official year, be at the head of the department of which vacci-
nation will in future form a branch, the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor
will confine himself to a few general remarks without going into the several
details which have already been reviewed by Dr. Bellew.
2. The Report shows a very great falling-off in the work of the
past, compared with that of the previous, year; and this is apparent both
in the Provincial as well as in dispensary and other local establishments.
This unfavorable result is probably due to the causes described by the
Superintendent-General in the 5th paragraph of his Report and referred to by
the Sanitary Commissioner in paragraph 2 of his Review. These causes being
exceptional, the Superintendent-General may be justified in expressing an
opinion that this check to progress will prove of temporary duration.
3. But the present Report shows, as previous reports have before shown,
that it is not the removal of exceptional causes affecting the operations of a single
year which will bring the department up to the standard of efficiency which
will enable it to fulfil the object for which it was established. The defects of
the present system were adverted to in His Honor's review of the last Report
and they do not require to be repeated here ; they are sufficiently indicated in
this and former reports, where it is shown that wherever failure has attended
the vaccination staff in its visits to the districts to which they have been told
off it has been ascribed either to the obstruction offered by, or to the apathy
of the local authorities ; and in like manner when favorable results have been
obtained it has generally been by the aid or co-operation of the district
authorities. The vaccine establishments have not contained within them-
selves the elements which would ensure success; they have depended for
that success almost entirely on the assistance which the local officials have
afforded ; and this, in His Honor's opinion, sufficiently indicates the line upon
which a reorganization of the department should be effected with a view of
remedying existing evils.
4. It is to the formation of a purely district staff under the control of
the civil and medical officers of each district, having within itself a perfect
and complete organization, for the working of which the local authorities
ought to be made responsible, that His Honor relies for the establishment
of a system which shall fully meet the requirements of the Province generally
in regard to vaccination. The absence of these necessary conditions in the
proposals referred to by the Sanitary Commissioner in paragraph 3 of his letter
above quoted has caused the Lieutenant-Governor to call for a revision of the
scheme which had been submitted to him, as it failed to take into considera-
tion the suitable agency already available in the medical staff attached to the
several dispensaries of the Province, whose services he considered might well be
utilized in superintending vaccine operations within the areas over which their
system of medical relief extends ; nor did that scheme contemplate more than