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Vaccination with a view to procuring the vaccination of all boys and girls
of a certain age resident within municipalities or cantonments ; the
Government would have been glad to have been assured that those duties
had been properly carried out, and that the object of the Act had been
duly attained. Were the registers of all children liable to be vaccinated
properly maintained? Did the Superintendents of Vaccination examine
these registers, and take steps to secure that no child remained unpro-
tected ? Were certificates of vaccination regularly granted ? To what
extent were notices and orders issued by Superintendents and Magistrates
under sections 17 and 18 of the Act? On these and other points connected
with the working of the Act and its result full information should be
given in your next report. Judging from a comparison of the number
of recorded births in municipalities in 1892 with the number of persons
vaccinated during the year 1892-93, it would seem that in many cases
the provisions of the Act were not properly carried into effect. Thus
in the following municipalities at headquarters of districts—Buland-
shahr, Farukhabad, Agra, Etáwah, Cawnpore and Benares, in which the
Act was in force throughout the year—the births exceeded in number
the vaccinations of persons of all ages : this was also the case in a large
number of outlying municipalities. With reference to the remarks made
in paragraph 37 of your report I am to point out that municipal vacci-
nators have not been forbidden to work outside municipal limits, and in
accordance with standing orders they should undertake outside work,
when they have leisure from their more immediate duties. It is under-
stood that the comparatively small number of operations performed by
municipal vaccinators is due to the exclusion from the account of opera-
tions performed outside municipal limits.
4. The statistics relating to vaccination in the different districts
are unfortunately, except in so far that it is a proof of their genuineness,
characterised, as usual, by startling variety. Thus, excluding hill
districts, the average number of operations performed by each vac-
cinator varies from 857 in Bínda to 1,943 in Gházipur, and the per-
sons successfully vaccinated per 1,000 of the population from 9.96 in
Gonda to 30.46 in Muttra. For many years the statistics have
invariably shown the backwardness of Oudh. There is happily a change
in this respect. Though in 1892-93 the four districts with the lowest
number of persons successfully vaccinated per 1,000 of the population
were districts in Oudh—Gonda (9.96), Unao (10.78), Bahraich (10.96)
and Kheri (12.21)—there has been recently a considerable advance in
that Province, and the ratio of five districts in Oudh (Lucknow, Bara
Banki, Sitapur, Hardoi and Partábgarh) exceeded in 1892-93 the
average ratio of the United Provinces. At the beginning of the
vaccination season the Commissioners of the Lucknow and Fyzabad
Divisions were addressed by the Government with reference to the
discreditable state of vaccination in Unao, Kheri, Rae Bareli, Fyzabad
and Gonda. Improvement is noticeable, but these districts, as well as
Bahraich and Sultánpur, show results below the average, and sustained
efforts on the part of the district officials of all grades are required.
In two of the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces—Basti
(12.29 per mille) and Azamgarh (12.65)—the record is exceptionally