22
WESTERN DIVISION, GUZERAT.
Superintendent.—Assistant
Surgeon R. T. Thorp, M.D.
Establishment.—Fifteen
Vaccinators.
Years.
1858....
1859....
Total
Vaccinated.
20,804
20,802
Compared with the
preceding Year.
Increase.
....
....
Decrease.
8,053
2
Success-
fully
Vaccinated.
18,481
18,693
Percentage
of Success.
88.8
89.8
REPORT FOR 1858.
THE total number vaccinated during 1858 has been 20,804. In the year 1857, 28,857 were
vaccinated, showing a decrease of 8,053; to be accounted for by the disturbed state of the
country, and the unsettled disposition of the people. The average number vaccinated by each
Vaccinator is about 1,386, which is rather low, and an average of 1,500 I hope eventually to
obtain. About 63.0 per cent. of the vaccinated were under one year of age, and about 37.0
above. The proportion of females to males is 87.2 per cent., and the percentage of successful
cases 88.8. Unsuccessful cases are most probably due to re-vaccination, or to vaccinating
those who have had the true variola, but on whom no traces either of the disease or prophy-
lactic are visible. In the districts visited, I have found both the lymph and vesicles to be
generally good. There is often a great difference in the perfectness and size of the vesicle
and areola in the same village, which is unaccountable, as it happens on children of the same
caste, age, and apparently in equally good health, and at the same time the operation is per-
formed, yet in one will be the perfect pearl on the fresh-rose petal, and on the other an
insignificant pustule, with scarcely any areola, or a large pustule with broad inflamatory areola;
both of the last form sores which are often difficult to heal. The Vaccinators often get a bad
set of operations by vaccinating during the heat of the day, or from lymph nine or ten days old,
when the vesicle has begun to decline, and the areola is faded. I have always fined those who
have thus transgressed, because sore arms, or an operation from which benefit should be, proving
futile, or a source of annoyance beyond the week or ten days the parents are told the child
may be ailing, tends to cause the operation to be shunned altogether, or, at the least, to be
thought light of; the lymph often improves by being changed from one district to another,
and even from one part to another of the same district. During the past year, variola has
been very prevalent, though not reported by the Vaccinators as truly as it should have been.
I cannot discover that inoculation is practiced in any district of this Division. I am not aware
of any means by which the benefits of vaccination can be more effectually spread in this
Division, until the people of themselves learn to understand its true purpose. At present some
avoid it, because of a fear that their caste may be injured by the inoculation of the blood of some
unclean animal; others imagine that it is a form or ceremony of the Christian religion, and
that therefore they must have nothing to do with it. Explanations or arguments, however urged
or brought forward, avail nothing ; the only one they seem fully to understand is, that it is
by the order of Government, and therefore every parent is bound to have his child vaccinated.