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38. As regards the proportion of the infant population protected, the
Government of India in their review of last year's report, in estimating (from the
number under 1 year successfully vaccinated ) the proportion of children born
during the year that was protected, calculated the number of infants available at 40
per 1,000 of the population, but I think this is too high a ratio. The number of the
infants available in the year (1886-87) under review was—excluding Feudatory
States and Zamindaris from which no vital statistics are received—only about
28 per 1,000 of the population.
The great majority of the people object to their children being vaccinated
till they are 3 or4 months old and therefore (as the working season closes about
the end of March) the infants available during any working season would be
those born from the 1st January till the close of the year, that is, for the season
(1886-87) under review the infants born during the year 1886. But we must
deduct from them those infants who had died before the commencement of the
vaccination season (January to 1st November).
This will not include quite all those who had died under 1 year old, but as
a considerable number of infants will be found to have become "protected" by an
attack of small-pox and so unfit for vaccination, we may set one of these against
the other, and for the whole Province accept the number of births less the
number of deaths under 1 year as representing the number of infants (under 1
year ) available for vaccination. These figures for the year 1886 are (for the area
under registration) :-
Births
Deaths under one year
Infants available
333,170 = 37.8 per 1,000
86,315 = 9.8 „
„
246,855 = 28.0 „
„
The birth rate of 1886 was however exceptionally low and cannot be taken
as an average ratio, but a similare alculation based on the "means" of the 5
years 1881-85 gives a ratio of under 34.
Of the 246,855 infants available in 1886-87, 154,339 or 60 per cent were
vaccinated.
39. The appointment of one or more apprentices in addition to the present
vaccination staff of each district, sanctioned by the Chief Commissioner last
April, will help very largely to do away with one cause of short work, viz. the
difficulty of efficiently replacing a Vaccinator during the working season.
40. The information regarding the vaccination census noticed in last year's
report has been already submitted to the Chief Commissioner.
The ratio of success (90) for the work of the Provincial department as
returned by the Civil Surgeons and the Native Superintendents is again almost
the same and is very slightly lower than it was in 1885-86: that returned
by Vaccinators is practically the same in the two years. At my request the
Civil Surgeons of Balaghat and Bhandara tested the completeness of protection
in children whose vaccination marks did not present the characteristic " pitting "
but more of the appearance of a cicatrix. The Civil Surgeon of Balaghat re-
vaccinated such cases with selected lymph passed once through the calf: the Civil
Surgeon, Bhandara, with (1 think) the ordinary human lymph. In all the cases
the re-vaccination was unsuccessful which tends to show that in many persons
with such marks there is protection.