A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district.

Kinnis, John, 1794?-1853.

Date:: MDCCCXXXV [1835]

Credit: A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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$Jaffiia was taken ill with small-pox in December, but recovered without com- municating the tlisorcier to any other person*. In 1810 small-pox prevailed in Jatfna and was kept up for some time by one of the Native headmen, who persisted in inoculating with variolous matter in defiance of a Government regulation forbidding it. It was detected the same year in several other districts; but did not spread to any extent, and only one case occurred in the district of Colombo, in a ])erson, who was as- certained to have brought the disease from the Kandyan tenitoiy: and no instance occurred of any person, who had gone through the Vaccine disease, having received the contagion.t As we have already remarked, the records of the medical department in this island cairy us no further back than 1809, though from other sources we liave been enabled to state (p. 24 ) the total number vaccinated pre- viously to the 13th April 1804, and to the end of 180G, aswellas the num- hers in 1807 and 1808. The average number vaccinated annually up to the end of the year last mentioned, or daring the first seven years after the in- troduction of vaccination, was 14,719. The annual numbers have upon the whole progressively increased since 1809; but in so remarkable a proportion whenever small-pox prevailed that the mere inspection of the vaccination Abstracts suffices to point out the different years, in which that disease visited the island. Its presence in 1810, as in subsequent years, appears to have either gi'catly increased the vigilance and activity of the vaccinators or subdued the antipathy of the people to vaccination, for we find the number returned as vaccinated in 1809 to be 25,697, while in 1810 it is 35,076, or more than double the ann-ual average of the preceding eight years. In February 1813, two recruits for the second Ceylon regiment, laliouring un- der small-pox, landed from the Coast, at Chilaw; but with this exception we find no mention of the disease from 1810 to the middle of 1819. 2c? Period, Epidemic Small-'pox o/1819. The immediate danger of smaU-pox being over, the number vaccinated an nually diminished by dearees from 35,076 in 1810 to 13,010 in 1818, This diminution might possibly have been ascribed to the snpply of unvaccinaled subjects having in a series of years become nearly exhausted, if the return of small-pox in 1819, had not brought nearly four times that number to present themselves for vaccination. Though the disease did not l)reak out before the month of July, 48,411 individuals were vaccinated in the Mari- time distiicts, and 14,249 in the Kandyan provinces (into which cow-pox had been introduced three years before), making a total of 62,660, in the whole island, during that yeai-. On this occasion the disease was introduced from the ]\Talabar coast by the master of a dhoney, and was first discovered in Bankshall, araou- somc> families who had sheltered and concealed the patient. The following ai;e ex- tracts from an interesting account of this epidemic, addressed by Di-. Farrdl mspector general of hospitals, and tiien superintendent general of vac- cination, to the deputy secretary to Government, and from staff sur'^eon (now deputy inspector general) Marshall's Account of the infroducfio'n of vaccination among the inhabitants of the Interior of Ceylon, and of an Epi- ■* I)r. Ciiristie in Edinburr/h Medicaland SurgicalJntirnal (or 1811 vol.'vii. p. SsiT' t LeUerof A.Hii;li Usq. siipaiiiUeiulent R.-ncral of tlie Vaccine eslablishineut 10 tue editor of ihe Ceylon Government (7a;!eUe, 2a February ISll. ' n$