With respect to making provision for the sons of officers, there seems but little doubt: the great encrease of mercantile establishments in Calcutta, and in general throughout the country, has opened a wide field for the employment of numbers conversant with the Hindui and Bengallee languages, (which the orphans acquire habitually,) and with common accounts. It is to be lamented, that so few, if any, are sent on board the pilot-schooners, according to a clause in the original institution, or as mates on board the country-traders. They certainly would be far better qualified, for such situations, than Europeans, who are totally ignorant of the vernacular tongue, and whose constitutions are by no means so well adapted to the climate. With respect to placing creoles of any description in authority, whether civil or military, there can be but one opinion; since their admission, into either the one or the other, could not fail to lessen that respect, and deference, which ought most studiously to be exacted, on every occasion, from the natives of every rank.
The expences attendant upon sending children from India to Europe, are very considerable: few commanders of Indiamen will take a child for less than 800 sicca rupees, equal to £100.; and, even then, some attendant must be provided, whose passage will probably amount to as much more. The best mode is, for several parents to hire a small cabin between decks, and to send a woman in charge of their united families, to the number, perhaps, of five or six little ones; all of whom may be thus duly attended, at far less expence than if each were sent under a separate charge. Few Europeans’ children are kept in India beyond their third or fourth year; and it is generally an object that the small-pox, or vaccination, the measles, and the hooping-cough, should have been passed previous to embarkation; lest infection should take place on board, in consequence of the seamen, &c., having been among persons laboring under those complaints. It is, indeed, likewise a matter of policy, considering the heavy expence, and the trouble attendant, to have all those dangerous diseases out of the way, previous to shipping the children for England; where they might else, on landing, be carried off by them, thus rendering all their parents’ anxiety, and possibly their ill-spared disbursements, of no avail.
Vaccination was expected to have made a very powerful impression on the Hindus, who, it was supposed, would eagerly embrace a preventive arising from that animal, held so sacred by their whole sect. It was, nevertheless, found extremely difficult to induce the Bramins to adopt a practice obviously so beneficial to mankind, although the latitude was thereby given them of augmenting the attributes of their idol, and to claim a preference in its behalf, even over the whole of the Christian world. Those who were sanguine in their expectations, of vaccination being instantly adopted among the Hindus at large, had entirely forgot, that the people did not possess the smallest liberty, either of conscience, or of conduct: they forgot that the priesthood had become possessed of the most arbitrary power, over the minds of their peaceful and timid communicants; and, that the practice of inoculation was prescriptively confined to that priesthood: further, that, notwithstanding the veneration in which the cow was held among them, a serious objection existed, on account of the matter being taken from any but a Hindu of the highest cast.
The vaccine inoculation was effected with great difficulty in India; an immense number of experiments failed, chiefly owing to the virus having been destroyed on the way from Constantinople, whence matter was repeatedly forwarded by Lord Elgin to Dr. Short, at Bagdad. A whole year was passed under the most mortifying disappointments; but in June, 1802, a successful inoculation was made at Bombay, on a healthy child, about three years of age; which furnished a supply for every port of India. By shipping several children, who had never experienced the variolous inoculation, a succession of subjects was happily secured, which enabled Dr. Anderson to transmit the blessings afforded by this mitigated disease, even to Port Jackson. The greatest apprehensions entertained, arose from the danger of not being always provided with a succession of infective matter; for it was soon discovered, that the virus was highly volatile, and often made its escape in conveying the pus from one house to another. This, added to the necessity, which soon became apparent, for the formation of some depôt, and for the establishment of certain principles necessary towards the desired success, caused the Governor-General to nominate Mr. William Russell, of the Bengal Medical List, whose abilities and zeal peculiarly qualified him, to the important situation of Superintendant of the Vaccine Institution. A series of ill health, which ultimately compelled that gentleman to return to Europe, caused the records of the first months to be somewhat inaccurate, notwithstanding every exertion on his part. His assiduity, however, enabled him to register almost every child, born of European parents, at that time in the settlement, among those who received this benign and inoffensive substitute for the most malignant, loathsome, and fatal disease that ever afflicted the human race.
In aid of what was doing at the Presidency, several of the surgeons attached to the civil stations, and to divisions of the army serving at great distances, and in various directions, were interested to promulgate the happy issue of what had been attempted by Mr. Russell, and by his successor, Mr. Shoolbred, Surgeon to the Native Hospital. Nevertheless, notwithstanding such excellent precautions, the matter was at times very nearly extinct; more than once the establishments at the several country stations were completely destitute, and were obliged to obtain a fresh supply from the Presidency: however, during the first eighteen months, no less than 11,166 persons were vaccinated; a matter of great importance, when it is considered, that, in India, at least one in sixty dies of those inoculated with the small-pox. About the year 1787, an order had been issued, that all the European soldiers in the Company’s service, who bore no marks of having had the disease, should be inoculated, and be lodged in the Artillery Hospital at Dum Dum. A few years after, (the former operation having proved highly successful,) the order was repeated; the result was, however, very unfavorable; as full one-sixth of the patients were carried off. It is to be hoped, that, in due time, when the natives at large may be thoroughly convinced of the security afforded by vaccination, the small-pox will be but little known. Its communication by insertion being now very strictly prohibited in Calcutta, and its neighbourhood, will, no doubt, pave the way for the progress of vaccination, and weaken the influence of the Bramins, who are interested in variolous inoculation. It is singular, that, at the very moment when this crafty tribe were endeavoring to depreciate, or rather to explode, vaccination, there started up among them a claim to the knowledge, and practice, of the latter at Bareilly, where inoculation was almost unknown. An attempt was made to prove, on the authority of a very ancient Sanscrit book, entitled, ‘Sud’has Angraha,’ and written by a physician, whose name was Mahadeva, that vaccination was practised in India many centuries back. On examining other copies of the work, it was found, that the passage quoted from that produced at Bareilly was wanting; this, added to other circumstances, rendered the tale rather doubtful, and led to such an investigation as proved fatal to the imposition.
It is a great pity the deception was ever discovered; since nothing could have aided the views of government better, than the testimony of such an ancient authority, of the practice having been formerly common in Hindostan! We were certainly wrong in publishing that refutation, which deprived us of the best weapon we could have employed for the extension of our pursuit. In lieu of decrying the work in question, as ‘an impudent forgery, interpolated into a Sanscrit-book, by one of those frauds so commonly, and so dexterously, committed by the Hindu literati, for the purpose of supporting the claims of the Bramins to the prior possession of all kinds of science,’ we ought to have assented fully to that imposition; allowing the priests to enjoy the supposed antiquity of their knowledge, and contenting ourselves with the contemplation of those immense benefits produced by the concurrence in, or adoption of, our practice, by those infatuated foster-fathers. But the struggle for reputation caused us to quit our hold, in the most impolitic, and thoughtless manner!
It may not be unpleasing to my readers, to be informed as to the manner in which the Bramins, or Hindu priests, who are the only persons of that sect allowed to inoculate, perform the operation: the following extract from Mr. Shoolbred’s treatise shews, that no alteration has taken place since Mr. Holwell, from whom Mr. S. quotes, gave the public an account of their practice, viz.
‘Inoculation is performed in Hindostan by a particular tribe of Bramins, who are delegated annually for this service, from the different colleges of Bindoobund, Allahabas, Benares, &c., over all the distant provinces. Dividing themselves into small parties, of three or four each, they plan their travelling circuits in such wise, as to arrive at the places of their respective destinations some weeks before the usual return of the disease. They arrive commonly in the Bengal provinces early in February; although, in some years, they do not begin to inoculate before March, deferring it until they consider the state of the season, and acquire information of the state of the distemper. The inhabitants of Bengal, knowing the usual time when the inoculating Bramins annually return, observe strictly the regimen enjoined, whether they determine to be inoculated or not: this precaution consists only in abstaining for a month from fish, milk, and ghee (a kind of butter, made generally from buffalo’s milk). The prohibition of fish relates only to the native Portugueze and Mahomedans, who abound in every province of the empire. When the Bramins begin to inoculate, they pass from house to house, and operate at the door, refusing to inoculate any who have not, on a strict scrutiny, duly observed the preparatory course enjoined them. It is no uncommon thing for them to ask the parent how many pocks they choose the children should have. They inoculate indifferently on any part, but, if left to their choice, they prefer the outside of the arm, midway between the wrist and the elbow, and the shoulders of females. Previous to the operation, the Bramin takes a piece of cloth in his hand, (which, if the family is opulent, becomes his perquisite,) and with it gives a dry friction on the part intended for inoculation, for the space of eight or ten minutes; then, with a small instrument, he wounds by many slight touches, about the compass of a silver groat, just causing the smallest appearance of blood. Then opening a double linen rag, which he always keeps in a cloth round his waist, he thence takes a small pledget of cotton, charged with the variolous matter, which he moistens with two or three drops of the Ganges water, and applies to the wound; fixing it on with a slight bandage, and ordering it to remain on for six hours without being moved: the bandage is after that time taken off, but the pledget remains until it falls off of itself. The cotton, which he preserves in a double calico rag, is saturated with matter from the inoculated pustules of the preceding year; for they never inoculate with fresh matter, nor with matter from the disease caught in the natural way, however distinct and mild the species. Early in the morning succeeding the operation, four pots, containing about two gallons each, of cold water, are ordered to be thrown over the patient from the head downwards, and to be repeated every morning and evening, until the fever comes on, which usually is about the close of the sixth day from the inoculation, then to desist until the appearance of the eruption, (about three days,) and afterwards to pursue the cold bathing, as before, through the course of the disease, and until the scabs of the pustules drop off. They are ordered to open all the pustules with a sharp-pointed thorn, so soon as they begin to change their color, and whilst the matter continues in a fluid state. Confinement to the house is absolutely forbidden; and the inoculated are to be exposed to every air that blows; the utmost indulgence they are allowed, when the fever comes on, is, to be laid on a mat at the door. Their regimen is to consist of all the refrigerating things the climate and the season produce; as plantains, sugar-canes, water-melons, rice, gruel made of white poppy seeds, and cold water, or thin rice gruel, for their ordinary drink. These instructions being given, and an injunction laid on the patients to make a thanksgiving, (poojah,) or offering to the goddess, on their recovery, the operator takes his fee, which, from a poor person, is a punn of cowries, (in number eighty, and in value about a half-penny,) and goes on to another door, down one side of the street, and up the other; and is thus employed from morning till night, inoculating sometimes eight or ten in a house.’
Mr. Shoolbred observes, on the authority of Mr. Glass, the surgeon at Boglepore, that, in that district, inoculation is performed by the lowest casts. This is certainly true among the Pahariahs, or Hill people, inhabiting that mountainous country lying between Boglepore and Nagpore. There, inoculation is performed in a very rough manner, merely by means of a blunt instrument, which, with some labor to the operator, and abundance of pain to the patient, is made to draw blood: the matter is then rubbed in with the finger!
These same Pahariahs perform other surgical operations in the rudest way, but with most extraordinary success; thus, they cut capons with a blunt clasp knife, made of iron; which, having a ring passed through the butt of the haft, or sheath, is always suspended by a cord passing round the waist. With this instrument, they make the necessary incision, so as to introduce a finger; when, having extracted the testes, the wound is rubbed with a little ghee and turmeric, and almost invariably heals in a very few days. It may be considered curious, that among the D’hangahs, (as the people who appear to be the aborigines of Tamar, Chittrah, Puchate, are designated,) very few instances, in proportion to the bulk of their population, are to be found, of persons marked with the small pox; I should be disposed to attribute this entirely to the simplicity of their manner of living; in which plain rice, with a few vegetables, stewed, much the same as for a curry, but without its catalogue of spices, compose the ordinary bill of fare. It cannot be owing to any thing favorable in the climate, which is peculiarly unhealthy.