RESOLUTION.
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.
MEDICAL.
Calcutta, the 15th November 1873.
READ—
A letter dated the 27th August 1873, No. 617, from the Surgeon-General, Indian Medical
Department, submitting reports and returns of Vaccination in the provinces of Lower
Bengal for the year ending 31st March 1873.
1. THE past year was one of very marked advance in respect of vac-
cination. Not only was the staff largely increased by the employment of
additional vaccinators and ex-inoculators, and on the opening of a new circle
in Eastern Bengal, but the number of operations rose in an even greater
ratio; being 687,406 against 365,622in the year preceding—an increase of
nearly 88 per cent. This is most marked in the metropolitan circles and in
dispensary vaccination, but is, in fact, apparent in all the circles save Darjeel-
ing. Satisfactory as it is, however, we are even yet it seems,—if we compare
the result with the birth rate, and accepting the figures as absolutely accurate,
which they perhaps hardly are—vaccinating only about one-third of the
numbers that annually come to require protection.
2. The percentage of successful operations in Calcutta, the Metropo-
litan, and Eastern Bengal Circles, is something marvellous in primary opera-
tions, being over 99 per cent. in each. This result has frequently been ques-
tioned, and though the medical authorities seem to entertain no doubt of its
correctness, the Lieutenant-Governor must notwithstanding confess that
he is extremely sceptical on the point. In Darjeeling the percentage was
93.97; in Ranchee, 95.29; in the Sonthal Pergunnahs, 95.09; but in
dispensary vaccination 89.23 only. The Surgeon-General finds an improve-
ment in most of these figures, but doubts whether the dispensary returns,
though lower than the others, are in fact even so reliable. This class of
vaccination is less regularly supervised and tested than that of the organised
circles. The above figures refer to primary vaccination, in which naturally
the percentage of successful operations is at its maximum. In secondary
vaccination the average of success is of course very much lower, being, for all
circles and dispensaries together, only 25.55 per cent. It is not however
explained why the ratio of success in secondary vaccination should vary so
much as to be only 23.16 per cent. in Calcutta, and 80 per cent. in the.
Sonthal Pergunnahs. Possibly the reason may be that the coolies who pass
through the Calcutta depôts, and who swell the vaccination returns, are most
of them in some way or other protected already.
3. As regards the sex of those operated on, it is found that last year's
returns show a larger percentage of females than usual; while, strangely
enough, the Eastern Bengal Circle, opening at Dacca, a centre of Mahome-
dan prejudice, has at the outset an excess of females. The ratios for all
Bengal were 53.7 per cent. of males and 46.7 per cent. of females. In
Dacca they were 49.3 and 50.7. The working of this new circle has also
brought up the ratio of Mahomedans to Hindoos and others in respect of
numbers vaccinated; the figures being 39.7 per cent. of Mahomedans against
32.8 in the year 1871-72. In the metropolitan districts, however, Mahomedan
vaccinations are still much below the census ratio.