2
Several bad instances of falsification of returns by vaccinators were detected
in the district of Kamrup, and 13 vaccinators were dismissed for this reason. There
is reason to believe that falsification of their returns has for years been largely
practised in Kamrup by the district vaccinators, a fact which vitiates all attempts
to criticise the district vaccination figures of former years, and explains the con-
tinued prevalence of small-pox in a district with an ostensibly high percentage
of protection. The Civil Surgeon, Goalpara, reports that three licensed vaccinators
deserted their posts, for fear of being punished for falsifying their returns, and
that another was suspended for sending a report of an outbreak of small-pox, which
on investigation by the inspecting staff was found to be false. These experiences
show the unreliability of the staff with which we have to work, and the need for
greater supervision (vide paragraph 10), and the services of a Deputy Sanitary
Commissioner are badly required to exercise supervision over the details of the
vaccination work.
9. Composition and strength of the inspecting staff.—There was no change un-
der this head during the year.
10. Verification by inspecting officer.—The Civil Surgeons and the subdivisional
Assistant Surgeons on behalf of Civil Surgeons, inspected 13,026 primary operations
and 2,105 re-vaccinations, or 5.83 per cent. and 4.49 per cent., respectively, of the
total number of operations of each class performed during the year. These figures
cannot fairly be compared with those of former years, as the circumstances of the
year under review were exceptional. The Civil Surgeons of Nowgong and of
Lakhimpur head the list, having inspected 16.71 and 13.01 per cent. of the total
number of primary operations performed, while on the other hand the Civil Surgeon,
Naga Hills, inspected none at all, the Civil Surgeon, Khasi and Jaintia Hills, only
92, and the Civil Surgeon, Lushai Hills, 174. The subordinate inspecting staff in-
spected 54.86 per cent. of the primary operations and 59.66 re-vaccinations per-
formed, as compared with 55.18 and 40.86, respectively, of the preceding year.
The number of vaccination inspections performed in Goalpara by the vaccination
inspecting staff was very small, owing to transfers during the working season. In
the Lushai Hills, the Sub-Inspector of Vaccination inspected only 388 operations
or 14.03 per cent. and an explanation is required.
11. Vaccination in compulsory areas.—Out of an estimated number of 3,368
infants available for vaccination in of areas in which the Compulsory Vaccination Act
is in force, 1,620 or 48.09 per cent. available infants were successfully vaccinated,
as compared with 53 per cent. in the preceding year. The provisions of the Act
appear to have been very successfully enforced in the town of Nowgong where
all the infants available for vaccination were vaccinated. The degree of protec-
tion afforded by successful vaccinations to infants in the towns of Sunamganj (20.22
per cent.) Silchar (22.74), Sylhet (24.93), Habiganj (28.35) and Barpeta (28.96)
appears to be low, but the conditions are, however, better than would appear
from this computation, as few, if any, surviving children who continue to reside
in these compulsory areas remain unvaccinated. The tendency of parents is to
postpone vaccination as late as possible, preferably until after their children are
one year of age, and as vaccination is not ordinarily carried on during six months
of the hot weather, the arrears of one year are usually adjusted in the following
vaccination season.
12. Vaccine Depôt.—The total number of capillary tubes loaded for issue
during the year 1918-19 was 483,385 as compared with 561,854 in the preceding
year, showing a decrease of 78,469 tubes. Owing to the pandemic of influenza
vaccination work was for sometime suspended in many districts, and demands
for lymph were therefore not so heavy as in normal times.
The total cost of working the vaccine depôt during the year was Rs. 11,116-11-2,
as against Rs. 7,808-0-8 in 1917-18. The increase is partly due to the inclusion
in this year's expenditure of the cost of capillary tubes, the stock from which we
had in previous years drawn our requirements being now exhausted, and partly
to an increase in the number of calves used. This item, in view of the smaller
output of lymph requires an explanation, which the Superintendent of Vaccine
Depôt gives in the following words—" The increase was due to the fact that many
calves were rejected for sickness. There seems to have been an epidemic of cattle-
disease in the district. There were also a large number of rejections among the
inoculated calves which was attributed to the bad quality of the lanoline received
from the Medical, Stores. This lanoline was impure and seemed to impair the
efficiency of the seed lymph for the preparation of which it is used ".