( 28 )
removed from the category of objections, I fear the only feasible one must be an unac-
countable opposition to the measure, confined to certain classes of the population, and
exhibited chiefly in certain localities. Though I write thus, I would not wish it to be
understood that I consider this opposition to vaccination met with in the districts
alluded to as peculiar to them, or India generally, while it certainly has this advantage
in this country, that it confines itself to simply declining the prophylactic, whereas
in other countries it raises an organized opposition to it, and I must say I have never
met with this in my divisions. In the Etawah District a vaccinator told me he was
afraid to go to a certain village, as the police had told him that the villagers had re-
ported that one of the vaccinated children had died of the operation. Being on the
spot, I made inquiries, and found out that the parents had taken the child to another
village. The object, however, of this report was clearly to bring vaccination into bad
repute; but, being confined to the village and neighbourhood, this report could hardly
be said to have been an organized one. As long as the system is voluntary, quality,
not quantity, must be the real aim of the scheme, and it is to the former alone that it
must look for a firm footing: an unsuccessful case attacked with small-pox, and
the disease proving fatal, shakes the faith of the villagers in the prophylactic gene-
rally, not only as regards future operations, but also with reference to those which may
have been successful. The number 1,500 has been fixed as a standard for a good
season's work, but if cases presented themselves this might safely be doubled, as fol-
lows :—There is nothing that I know of to prevent a vaccinator operating on 30 cases
a day (and it has been done with good success), if his time was not taken up in collect-
ing the cases ; indeed, they would take longer to record than to vaccinate. Now, if this
can be done, we should have 30 × 6 = 180 for a week: or, taking it on the 104 working
days of this season as noted in para. No. 7, the season's number would be 104X 30=3,120,
and this multiplied by the 86 vaccinators in the plains, gives 268,320 for the season, or
upwards of 40,000 in excess of the annual birth-rate of the Agra and Meerut Divisions.
It has been suggested that even if the strength of the Vaccine Department in the
North-Western Provinces is doubled, the birth-rate even of these provinces will never
be approached; but from what I have tried to show above, the real obstacle lies not in the
extent of the establishment, but in the difficulty of its getting fair scope for work : not a
single vaccinator in my divisions is overworked, as far as operating goes, though some
may be in their fruitless journeys from village to village. In my letter No. 18 of 1871,
dated 26th January 1871, to the Officiating Superintendent-General of Vaccine, North-
-estern Provinces, forwarded for the information of the Government of the North-
western Provinces, I advocated compulsory vaccination within a radius of ten miles
round all stations where Europeans were quartered, and within similar limits of munici-
pal boundaries; but having during the past season discussed this subject, with reference
to some of the municipalities in the Agra and Meerut Divisions, I was informed by an
officer who has devoted considerable attention to the subject of municipal vaccination.,
that there would not be the least difficulty in making vaccination compulsory within
municipal boundaries. The only obstacle which he suggested was on the score of the
possibility of one or two vaccinators protecting the numbers which would require the
operation. I think, however, I satisfactorily met this objection. This plan was to notify
that the municipality has appointed a vaccinator of their own, who would attend daily
at a notified locality, and that his services would be available gratuitously for the un-
protected portion of the poorer classes. Those who objected to send their children to
these vaccinating stations would be at liberty to make their own arrangements for the
vaccination of their children, but that this would have to be done within a certain period
of the birth, or if the child was above six months, after the 1st November, and a certifi-
cate of successful vaccination produced, signed by some person qualified to give it. Judg-
ing from the class from which the hakeems and baids who have been selected by the
Native gentlemen of Boolundshuhur and the district to be instructed in vaccination are
taken, I should consider no objection on the score of social position could be brought
against the ordinary stamp of vaccinators in my divisions. The municipal vaccinator
could therefore attend at the houses of the better class, and for this extra work he would