No. 1396 L., 11TH AUGUST 1900.
GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS.
LOCAL AND MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT.
READ—the following paper:—
From Lieut.-Colonel W. G. KING, M.B., C.M., D.P.H., C.I.E., I.M.S., Sanitary
Commissioner for Madras, to the Secretary to Government, Local and
Municipal Department, dated Madras, 13th July 1900, No. 1078-S.
I have the honour to forward herewith the Annual Report on Vaccination
for the year 1899-1900, which is, as usual in this Presidency, written by the
Inspector of Vaccination and Deputy Sanitary Commissioner. I would specially
invite the attention of Government to paragraphs 10, 20, and the concluding
sentences of paragraph 21 of the report.
2. Government, in its order No. 1502 M., dated 19th October 1894, accepted
the policy of not permitting the onus of working the compulsory clauses respecting
vaccination in municipalities to be thrust upon vaccinators who, irrespective of
legal considerations, cannot be regarded as fit persons to fulfil, with impartiality
and promptitude, certain of the requirements, which include some of the most
important functions of Municipal Law. The issue of that order has tended to
secure results which, in the case of some towns, compare favourably with the
working of compulsory vaccination in Great Britain.
But this office has to
contend continually with much difficulty in securing the efficient working of details
of the order—involving waste of time in correspondence that should be unnecessary.
There is much tendency on the part of certain Municipal Chairmen to regard
the subject too lightly, and to consider their duties sufficiently fulfilled by delegat-
ing them wholesale to vaccinators. I trust, therefore, that Government will be
pleased to invite the attention of Chairmen to the fact that, in correctly carrying
out the order in question, they would not only perform important duties which
their acceptance of a responsible post implies willingness to fulfil, but they would
effect humanitarian work in saving human life of a magnitude that is fully worthy
of the attention of the best intellects.
3. I trust that from the figures set forth by the Inspector of Vaccination in
his paragraph 20, Government will see that its recent determination to establish a
Central Vaccine Institute for the service of this Presidency is not only justifiable,
but is a reform that is urgently required, and one which, so long as vaccination in
any part of the Presidency is compulsory, could not, in justice to public interests,
have been ignored.
4. This office has, at intervals, pressed upon Government the importance of
substituting legal compulsion in rural areas, for the methods of " persuasion "
now resorted to. I trust that Government may consider that it is advisable
to at least sanction compulsion in Unions, where the recent Births and Deaths
Registration Act will have duly prepared the way for its introduction.
5. Full advantage is being taken of the approval of Government to the enroll-
ing of Certificated Sanitary Inspectors as Deputy Inspectors of Vaccination.
Pending the establishment of a Vaccine Institute in this Presidency, they are
required to undergo special training and examination in vaccination, at the Mysore
Government Vaccine Institute, Bangalore. Three appointments of men thus