188 



CHOLERA 



bustees of Calcutta, in a certain number of boarding- 

 schools, where the parents agreed to the inoculation 

 of their children, in orphanages, etc. The vast 

 majority of inoculated people lived thus under direct 

 observation of the sanitary and medical authorities 

 of India." (Haffkine, Lecture in London. British 

 Medical Journal, 21st Dec. 1895.) 



Altogether, upwards of 70,000 injections on 

 42,179 people — without having to record a single 

 instance of mishap or accident of any description 

 produced by otir vaccines. Consider the colossal 

 difficulties of this new treatment : the frequent 

 running short of the vaccine, preventing a second 

 injection ; the absolute necessity, at first, of using 

 very small doses of a weak vaccine, lest one disaster 

 should occur ; the impossibility of avoiding, now 

 and again, some loss of strength in the vaccine ; the 

 impossibility of knowing how long the protection 

 would last. Surely in all science there is nothing 

 to beat this first voyage of adventure single-handed 

 to fight the cholera in India. 



Later than Haffkines 1895 report, we have Dr 

 Simpson's 1896 report: "Two Years of Anti- 

 choleraic Inoculations in Calcutta. By W. J. 

 Simpson, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.H., Health Officer, 

 Calcutta." The date of this report is 8th July 

 1896; and it gives not only the Calcutta results, 

 but all that are of any use for exact judgment : # — 



* For a summary of this report, see the Lancet, 8th August 

 1896. For more recent results, see Surgeon-Captain Vaughan 

 and Assistant-Surgeon Mukerji, in the thirtieth annual report 



