Resolution on the Vaccination Report of Assam for the three
years 1899-1900 to 1901-1902.
Extract from the Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner of Assam in the General
Department, No. 6271G., dated Shillong, the 7th August 1902.
Read—
The Vaccination Report of Assam for the three years 1899-1900 to 1901-1902.
RESOLUTION.
THE number of vaccine operations, including revaccinations, done by all agencies
increased in each year of the triennium, showing steady and satisfactory progress, and
in the final year reached the high total of 280,827, nearly 4½ per cent. of the population
having been successfully vaccinated and revaccinated during the twelve months. This is
a very much better result than can be exhibited by any other province of Northern India.
It may be that conditions in Assam favour vaccination, inasmuch as the population
largely consists of aboriginal (or, at all events, non-Hindu) races, who are more free
from the trammels of caste prejudice than the inhabitants of those regions where
a more ancient civilisation exists. The popularity of vaccination in Burma (another
province of non-Hindu population) appears to support this conjecture. In Assam
vaccination is not so widely accepted in the Sylhet and Cachar districts, which
have close affinities with Bengal, as in the Assam Valley and the Hills.
2. But however this may be, the wide extension of vaccination in this province is
due very largely to the attention which has been given to the matter in the Medical
Department, and the report under review shows that the operations of the vaccinating
staff were carefully watched by the Head of that Department. In the year 1900-1901 it
was noticed that the number of vaccinations effected by the dispensary establishment
showed a marked decrease, being only 17,904, as against 24,715 in the preceding year.
The withdrawal by the Principal Medical Officer of some special allowances led to
speedy recovery. A satisfactory feature is the steady increase in the vaccination
effected by the medical staff of tea gardens.
3. Of individual plains districts, Cachar shows worst with only 22 per mille of its
population protected during the year, and Sibsagar (Captain A. Leventon, I.M.S., Civil
Surgeon) best with a proportion of 48. But the best result of any district in the
province is that of the Garo Hills in charge of Military Assistant Surgeon C.
Bancroft, under whose supervision 79 per mille of the population were protected.
The inspections of vaccinations by Civil Surgeons in the same two districts—
Sibsagar and the Garo Hills—were 5,000 and 4,000 in number. In both Sibsagar
and the Garo Hills a large amount of inspection was effected by the Civil Surgeons, and
vaccination has spread because they take an interest in promoting it.
4. The province contains only 13 circles (municipalities, unions, cantonments, etc.)
where vaccination is compulsory under the Act. The number of infants calculated
to be "available" was 1,757, and about 80 per cent. of these were protected by
successful vaccination. The worst results occur in the village of Goalpara, where it
should have been easy to secure the vaccination of all the 122 infants "available,"
but where only 36 of them were vaccinated. In Nowgong—another petty urban area—
owing to the personal influence of Captain MacNaught, the Civil Medical Officer,
139 infants were vaccinated out of a total of 147.
5. The animal vaccine depôt at Shillong maintains an annual advance. The
number of tubes of vaccine virus supplied in the last of the three years under review
reached the remarkable total of 395,317, nearly 80 thousand more than in the first
year of the triennium. Not only is the quantity of lymph supplied from the Shillong
depôt large, but the quality is exceptionally good. No complaints were received
except from Darrang, where the first supply was of inferior quality, due, as the Civil
Surgeon believed, to the very hot weather at the time of its receipt. Hospital Assistant
Kamal Charan Datta was in subordinate charge of the depôt. He is commended by
his superior officers, and the Officiating Chief Commissioner considers that the results
reported justify commendation.