2
should be supplemented so as to guard against possible accidents at the central
depôt, and further efforts should, therefore, be made to carry out vaccinations with
fresh lymph. Arm-to-arm vaccination appears to have been tried only in two districts,
Sibsagar and Sylhet, and in both with apparently excellent results.
3. The proportion of the population successfully vaccinated during the year was
4.57 per cent., against 4.29 in 1895-96. The vaccination of infants under one
year of age showed a falling off, viz., 45,865, against 47,176 in the previous year.
During the calendar year 1896, 169,172 births were registered in Assam, and in the
Census Report of 1891 the number of children under one year of age was stated to be
191,720. The proportion of infants successfully vaccinated was thus 27.1 per cent. of
the registered birth-rate, and 23.9 per cent. of the estimated number of infants available
for vaccination.
4. The number of recorded deaths from small-pox in the ten towns in which Com-
pulsory Vaccination Acts are in force was 59, or .89 per thousand, in 1896, against 132,
or 1.92 per thousand, in 1895 ; the corresponding figures for the province as a whole were
1.09 and 0.77 per thousand, respectively. From the diagram given in paragraph 27 of
the report, it would appear that 2,686 persons of every 10,000 of the population
in the plains districts had been protected during the seven years ending 1896-97.
The recorded death-rate was highest in the Lakhimpur district, in which the largest
proportion of the inhabitants had been protected, and, excepting Kamrup, the death-
rate in Sibsagar was higher than in any of the remaining districts, although the
protection afforded in that district was greater than in any other except Lakhimpur.
Looking, however, to the small proportion of persons who are protected, it is evident
that very little importance can be attached to these figures.
By order of the Chief Commissioner of Assam
E. A. GAIT,
Offg. Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam,