3
Districts.
Western Registration District ...
Presidency Circle
...
...
...
Central Registration District ...
Southern Registration District ...
Gujarát Registration District ...
Sind Registration District
...
Kind of lymph used.
Glycerinated ...
Animal ...
Glycerinated ...
Glycerinated ...
Human ...
Animal ...
Glycerinated ...
Human ...
Glycerinated ...
Human
...
Animal
...
Glycerinated ...
Number of
Operations.
Primary.
128,775
6,800
14,721
151,702
17,343
5,172
124,083
31,308
99,031
92,671
4,813
1,264
Re-vac-
cination.
11,020
2,167
18,931
2,949
733
116
17,602
2,028
3,821
2,075
878
27
Successful cases
excluding "unknown."
Primary.
115,720
6,270
13,325
139,138
17,328
5,158
116,827
30,700
91,743
84,041
4,700
1,219
Re-vac-
cination.
5,366
145
62
1,565
584
115
7,551
212
1,534
1,081
464
9
Percentage of success
excluding " unknown."
Primary.
98.62
99.29
97.23
99.72
99.93
90.77
99.28
98.98
99.04
98.98
99.87
99.11
Re-vac-
cination.
05.82
71.08
26,50
74.63
80.44
99.14
58.61
10.47
53.25
79.54
78.91
60.00
Ill-effects by vaccination.
18. No authentic instances have occurred of any other disease having
been communicated through vaccination.
A case of general vaccinia was reported from the Western Registration
District, which ended fatally. Such occurrences are extremely rare and
cannot be accepted as genuine unless they are actually seen by a com-
petent medical man at the time. The description of the condition usually
given is that "the vaccination burst out all over the body", and on inves-
tigation it almost always transpires that the disease was contagious im-
petigo contracted a few days after the operation was performed and there-
fore assumed to be the direct result of it. Occasionally returns are received
showing a death as directly due to vaccination, without any further skin
lesions ; on enquiry it invariably turns out to be due to coincident malaria.
Inoculation.
19. Inoculation with unattenuated small-pox virus appears to have been
somewhat extensively practised in the Nara Valley
Division of Thar and Párkar District, which was
responsible for a somewhat severe outbreak of the disease.
Two individuals were prosecuted on this account under Section 269 of the
Indian Penal Code. One was discharged, the learned Magistrate ruling " That
inoculation is not illegal, but that it should be done under such safeguards
that there should be no likelihood of the spread of the disease."
But he
ordered the man's stock in trade to be confiscated. It consisted of a couple
of old and rusty lancets and a small tin box, full of dry small-pox scales.
This decision apparently has been accepted as correct, wherefore I would
advocate the urgent necessity of a revision of the laws relating to the subject.
The other case is still pending.
20. The table showing the number of vaccinations performed in
municipal towns on children under one year of age is given in Appendix III.
The work of the Department is far more efficiently carried on in those
towns where the Vaccination Act is in force. In Karáchi, for instance, the ratio
of the number of vaccinations performed under one year to those of the
available children is 105 per cent.; (this seeming absurdity is due to the fact
that numerous infants are brought in from the Jam's territory—Las Bela—for
the operation), whereas in Hyderabad, which is only a little more than a hundred
miles off, where not only is there no Act in force, but strenuous opposition is
experienced, the ratio is only 67 per cent. Moreover, the inhabitants of the
neighbouring towns and villages take their cue from the larger city and cannot
be induced to have their children protected. Shikárpur is another town where
compulsion might be introduced with advantage. In both these places
epidemics are constantly occurring and as a result form foci of active infection
to the surrounding country.
H. A. FORBES KNAPTON, Major, I. M. S.,
Acting Sanitary Commissioner for the Government of Bombay.
Poona, 4th July 1912.