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of rupees that Government spends on vaccination, and the incredible numbers of children
vaccinated in every district except the one in which he happens at that moment to be.
The spokesman does not forget his own importance, but doubles his pay, and is very
much in the confidence of Government. The ignorant villagers believe all this : they
listen to him with great respect, and call him "baboo jee." If the zemindar is persuaded
to have his children vaccinated, the assamees are simply ordered to have it done, and,
though they do not volunteer, they never refuse.
It must he confessed, moreover, that there is a certain amount of indirect pressure
brought to bear upon the lower castes. When the zemindar is an absentee or opposed to
vaccination, the assistance of the chowkeedar is called into requisition. He points out
where the children have been concealed, and partly by coaxing and partly by threats,
he induces the parents to have them vaccinated. It is never done by absolute violence,
but if a vaccinator were only to operate on those voluntarily brought to him, his success
would be very limited indeed. From this sketch of the modus operandi, it is evident how
essential as elements of success are high caste, taste, and moral courage.
In towns all that goes for nothing. The people know the vaccinator, his pay
and limit of his powers, as well as he himself does. He has to argue with and convince
every household, and, unhappily, not the men (who are generally away at some em-
ployment), but the women, who are far more suspicious and ignorant than their husbands.
Mere inspection duty is very annoying in towns. Every Superintendent knows he has
to stand frequently for five minutes at the door before the women can be persuaded to
bring their children even to be looked at.
29. Small-pox.—In Goruckpore more particularly the small-pox has been very
prevalent, but the type not very severe. I saw more than twenty cases of synchronism of
small-pox and vaccination. In one large village this was so marked that people thought
that the disease resulted from the prophylactic ; so I thought it more prudent to remove
the man to the next village. If he had been ordinarily intelligent, he might have done
all the more good, but as he was a raw recruit from Moradabad, I was obliged to post
him where he could, at least, do no harm. In most cases of this synchronism the
disease ran a mild course. Three of them were severe and did not seem modified by
the vaccination, as the disease had evidently taken too strong a hold of the constitution
previous to the operation. In two villages the epidemic evidently resulted from ino-
culation ; in nine other villages I could not trace the origin of it. If I bad remained
in the infected locality, I would have had an opportunity, the loss of which I regret, of
studying the effects of vaccination in modifying the disease in its several periods of
incubation, a subject which creates some interest in England, but which cannot be inves-
tigated in so large and unbroken a field as in India. If the few intelligent Euro-
peans who are doubtful of the efficacy of vaccination as a prophylactic were to visit
some villages I could name in Goruckpore, their scepticism would only be a matter of
a few hours duration. In one small village some four years ago the over-zealous vaccin-
ator seized two children at play and vaccinated them by force. Their parents antici-
pated their death as certain, and their sorrow was as sincere as it was loudly expressed;
since that period three epidemics of small-pox visited their village, and took its victims
on each occasion. Last year above 50 children died of it, not a house escaping
the scourge. The two children who were forcibly vaccinated were not even attacked,
and the villagers were no less anxious than I was that the few who remained
should be protected. We agreed, too, in the conviction of the necessity of some means
of saving them from the effects of their own ignorance. In no village have I seen one
who had been successfully vaccinated seized with small-pox. The villagers in some
cases have noticed the immunity of those vaccinated; but, strange to say, it did not
occur to them that it was owing to the prophylactic, until it was pointed out to them.
These were, however, only exceptional cases, for in two at least the people sent for the
vaccinator on the outbreak of small-pox.