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lators. The graphic description of their history and mode of working, given by my
predecessor, leaves nothing further to be said on these heads; but there are a few
points bearing on their extensive employment as Vaccinators, which may be worthy
of notice. In nearly all of the districts of the Division, they have for centuries been
looked to for the means of protection against small-pox, by those of the people who
recognize the necessity for such protection. Even now, after the introduction of vac-
cination, and when it is known that inoculation is proscribed by Government, these
men are in some parts secretly, and in others openly encouraged, by the people to visit
their villages. If, therefore, they could be prevailed upon to substitute the practice of
vaccination for that of inoculation, the result so much desired by Government, of at
length seeing vaccination accepted and voluntarily maintained by the people as one of
their own institutions, would to a certain extent be obtained.
12. Those who write on the subject, without understanding it, express the opinion,
that is merely necessary to teach Inoculators the theory and practice of vaccination.
They will then, they believe, at once become convinced of its superior advantages
and voluntarily discontinue the more " risky" practice of inoculation. Facts are
decidedly against such a conclusion, and it is easy to see why they should be so. Every
year, numerous instances occur of Inoculators, instructed in the practice of vacci-
nation and supposed to have become converts to its superiority over inoculation, going
back to their old faith. This season I have myself met with two instances in which
Inoculators in the pay of Government as Vaccinators, could not even wait until the
vaccinating season was over and the season proper for inoculation had begun, before
returning to their old practices. Besides these, it has several times been reported to
me by Native Superintendents and Vaccinators, that Inoculators provided with vacci-
nating instruments and authorized to vaccinate, have visited their districts and carried
on inoculation. Such reports reached me from various places in Ghazeepore, Azim¬
ghur, and Bustee Districts. Of their truth I entertain no question. I myself found a
child recently inoculated by a man to whom Government vaccinating instruments
had been given. This was in the Seyadpore Tehseel of the Ghazeepore District.
13. Facts, therefore, are against the conclusion that Inoculators have only to be
taught the advantages of vaccination to ensure their practising it. The explanation
is, I think, to be found in the riskiness of inoculation already mentioned.
14. The Inoculator finds the vaccine vesicle runs a mild course, and terminates
favourably without having excited a serious symptom. The people are also not slow
to make the same discovery. Consequently, the services of the Inoculator during the
progress of the vesicle are not called for. If he obtains a fee at all, it is only the fee
for performing the operation. But even this, as the people can have it done gratis by
a Government Vaccinator, he is little likely to receive. Inoculation, on the other hand,
is always attended with severe and often with serious or dangerous symptoms. When
these arise, the parents of a child send for the Inoculator, who administers various
heating or cooling medicines, as the case may require; should these fail, a goat is pro-
cured, and the evil spirit which is supposed to have taken possession of the child is, by
the process of "jaru," transferred from the child to the goat. All this means hand-
some profits to the Inoculator. An intelligent man who had long practised inoculation
informed me that when the parent got greatly alarmed about their child, they paid him
liberally on the occasion of each visit, in the hope that he would exert himself to the
utmost to save its life. He told me that he not unfrequently received as much as
eighty or ninety rupees in a single month.
15. With all this, vaccination does away. It argues therefore, it appears to me, a
somewhat child-like belief in the virtue of an Inoculator to suppose that he would at
once, on witnessing the less riskiness of vaccination, take to its practice and ruin
himself by giving up inoculation.
16. To induce an Inoculator to abandon his own craft and take to vaccination, he
must be secured a sufficient income. He cannot, as yet at least, depend upon the fees