HAPPY INDIA 121 



in England, where the local authorities are compelled 

 by law to borrow money for the purpose of making 

 water-works, and where enormous sums of money 

 would be spent immediately if it was known that 

 cholera would come if proper water-works were 

 not made. In England we have no cholera simply 

 because we have water-works all over the country. 

 During the last ten years in India the deaths per 

 annum from small-pox varied from 51,000 up to 

 136,000. Small-pox is simply a case of want of 

 sanitation or want of food. Where the people are 

 well fed and where the sanitary arrangements are 

 sound, there is little or no small-pox. India is 

 perhaps the best vaccinated country in the world. 

 The number of vaccinations paid for by the Govern- 

 ment exceeds the number of births, but it has long 

 been known to medical authorities in India that 

 vaccination is no use for stopping small-pox. Never- 

 theless they continue to vaccinate because it is cheaper 

 to pay about 150,000 a year for vaccinating babies 

 than to establish sanitation, and in the face of the 

 enormous death-rate from fevers, the death of 80,000 

 or so from small-pox, perhaps, is not considered very 

 important. In the last ten years the annual deaths 

 from plague have varied from 74,000 up to 743,000. 

 This again is simply a case of sanitation and food 

 supply. In many districts the people live in huts 

 with mud floors, and these floors get fouled with 

 human excreta, and as a result plague appears 

 sometimes. The matter was carefully investigated 

 by the most eminent man we have in the study of 



