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inserted for the cases which could alone be those of revaccination, then the seven years
which it is generally considered should elapse before the second operation ought to be
performed have not yet expired under the present scheme; and, supposing they had,
I should think that revaccination in the strict sense of the term ought not to be thought
of as far as the operations of the vaccinators in the villages are concerned, till the
thousands unprotected by even a successful primary vaccination are immensely reduced
in numbers. After what I have recorded, I need hardly add that no revaccinations of
any kind have been performed during the past season, and the operations performed in
the jails alluded to hereafter, happening as they did in the cases of prisoners who had
been inoculated, or had had small-pox, have been entered, as they really were, under the
primary vaccination column. Before closing this para., I would wish to add a few
remarks regarding what, for want of a better name, I may call fictitious vaccination, as
witnessed during the past season. During my tour I had an opportunity of seeing a
considerable number of vaccine operations which had been performed on the prisoners
in two jails in my divisions, the results of which have an important bearing on the
subject of this para. The subjects of these operations were prisoners of all ages, from
adults to old men, many of them deeply pitted with small-pox. In nearly all these
cases there was, as might have been expected from the circumstances attendant on re-
sidence in a jail, and no preparatory treatment, more or less irritation. Of upwards of
fifty on which there should have been good crusts, only four were met with, and of
twenty, within seventy hours of the operations there was an amount of irritation
which quite precluded the probability of a characteristic vaccine vesicle resulting.
With reference to these vaccinations in the jails, I would with all deference suggest
that the operations be confined to those prisoners who have no mark of small-pox or
of inoculation, including, perhaps, those on whom there is a primary vaccine cicatrix,
for careful experiments with a second vaccine operation. The scheme of vaccination
in the North-Western Provinces being a voluntary one, it is of importance to prevent
a clashing of practice within and without the jail, more especially as it is possible that
these prisoners when released might circulate in their villages a report to the effect that
vaccination constituted one of the punishments of the jail, and these men would cer-
tainly have the following circumstance in support of their report, viz., that outside of
the jails all cases of small-pox and those who had been inoculated were exempted from
vaccination, while all prisoners indiscriminately were operated on. The report, there-
fore, alluded to in para. No. 14 might, as before stated, gain confirmation from the
above circumstance.
Numbers of operations performed by
each vaccinator.
10. Under this head the new form of Statement No. I. exhibits differences in the
total number of operations performed by each vac-
cinator which demand some notice.
It will be
seen that in some tehseels the numbers of last season
and of that under report show a strange similarity in the totals of operations performed
during these two periods as regards the numbers being large and small. If, for in-
stance, the returns in the Etawah District are compared with those of the adjoining one
of Mynpoory, a very great difference in numbers is noted; similarly, when Agra is
compared with Muttra and Allygurh, and Moozuffernuggur with Meerut and Saharun¬
pore. Now it is when making such comparisons that the real difficulty of effecting a
standard for the number of operations makes itself manifest. The generally accepted
number of 1,500 in the season, or 10 per diem in five months of thirty days each,
is exceeded in some of the tehseels in the Mynpoory, Muttra, Allygurh, Meerut, and
Saharunpore Districts, when the calculation is made on four months and Sundays ex-
cluded, and sufficiently approached in many others in these districts ; but in Etawah
and Agra far lower standards must be fixed as a rule. The vaccinators have been
changed, and some of the best men, as will be shown by the rate of success, sent to these
tehseels, but with little improvement in the totals of operations. That religious pre-
judice has nothing to do with it is shown by the numbers attained in Muttra ; and
where apathy might be advanced, as in Saharunpore, the results would not justify it.
To what, then, is it owing ? If caste or religious prejudice and apathy are thus