( 16 )
Government deputed Dr. Seaton, the author of the " Handbook of Vaccination," to visit
the Continent, and report on the results of animal vaccination as seen there. He has
embodied his observations in a most valuable and comprehensive report, which will be
read with advantage by all who take any interest in the subject of vaccination. The
conclusions he arrives at are thus shortly summarized by Mr. Simon :—" Facts stated
" in Dr. Seaton's report show most clearly that the system [of animal vaccination] as
" at present understood has certain great disadvantages; and these, in my opinion, are
" of such a kind as at present entirely to forbid an adoption of the system in place of
" our own, unless on independent grounds our own already deserved to be condemned.
" The disadvantages at present imputable to animal vaccination are its various pecu¬
" liar liabilities to failure: first, that apparently even able and painstaking operators
" may find it impossible to transmit successive vaccination from calf to calf without
" very frequent recurrence of failures and interruptions; secondly, that the transference
" of infection from the calf to the human subject, even under the most favourable cir¬
" cumstances (i.e., by experienced operators and with lancet direct from calf to arm),
" has in it such risks of failure, that, for instance, at Rotterdam, the proportion of
" unsuccess was nearly twenty times as great as in the ordinary arm-to-arm vaccina¬
" tions; and thirdly, that the calf-lymph as compared with ordinary lymph is pecu¬
" liarly apt to spoil with keeping, and in the form of tube-preserved lymph can so little
" be relied on, that the Rotterdam establishment in distributing supplies of lymph now
" uses only lymph from the human subject. Evidently, then, in the present state of
" knowledge, a system of animal vaccination would have in it an extreme uncertainity
" of operation; and this uncertainty would, for obvious reasons, be so conclusive
" against our preferring the system on its own merits for purposes of public vaccination,
" that practically we have only to consider whether our own system has demerits
" entitling it to any considerable mistrust. To the question whether any such mistrust
" ought to be entertained, I have already in part given a satisfactory answer in report¬
" ing the undiminished efficiency of the lymph supplied by our national vaccine
" establishment."
15. It is now my pleasing duty to acknowledge the assistance rendered to the cause
of vaccination by the Tehseeldar of Nuggrah, and also the exertions of Puddum Niddhie,
my Native Superintendent for Goruckpore, towards the enlistment of local inoculators
into the department.
ALLAHABAD AND JHANSIE CIRCLE.
No. 40, dated Camp, Cawnpore, 1st April, 1871.
From—J. RICHARDSON, ESQ., M.B., Supdt. of Vaccination, Allahabad and Jhansie Circle,
To—W. WATSON, ESQ., M.B., Offg. Supdt.-Genl. of Vaccination, N.-W. Provinces.
SIR,—I have the honour to submit the following report of vaccination in
the Allahabad and Jhansie Divisions of the North-Western Provinces, for the year
1870-71.
2. I received charge of the office of Superintendent from my predecessor on
the 14th November last, or shortly after the commencement of the working season in
the plains.
3. I have been able to inspect the work of all the vaccinators in the four dis-
tricts of Jhansie, Lullutpore, Jaloun, and Allahabad. I also examined the work of the
majority of those employed in the districts of Cawnpore, Humeerpore, Banda, and Fut¬
tehpore. Of the Jounpore District I have seen only one vaccinator, and the work
done by him. Of the Bundelkhund States I have examined the work of the vaccinators
employed in Dutteah, Leekumgurh, and Sumpter.