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Bukta did not say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with forehead in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and explain this unknown horror that hung over his people. The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear.
The vaccinator stopped before a man, dipped his lance or whatever the instrument was into the jar, and gripping the arm tightly just above the elbow, made four big slashes on the muscle. The incisions were large, deep, and brutal-looking. Then he passed to the next man, repeating the process, and so on all along the line.
Bukta did not say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with forehead in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and explain this unknown horror that hung over his people. The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear.
Whether it was because the temperature within the small building was too sultry or not I cannot say, but the vaccinator decided to complete his work in the open air, the fact that a dust-storm was raging notwithstanding. The military doctor was accompanied by a colleague carrying a small pot or basin which evidently contained the serum. The operation was performed quickly if crudely.
The explanation, as it seemed to him, came at the change of the moon, when he received orders to hold himself in readiness to "allay any possible excitement" among the Satpura Bhils, who were, to put it mildly, uneasy because a paternal Government had sent up against them a Mahratta State-educated vaccinator, with lancets, lymph, and an officially registered calf.
If the Vaccination Acts, instead of being wholly repealed as they are already half repealed, were strengthened by compelling every parent to have his child vaccinated by a public officer whose salary was completely independent of the number of vaccinations performed by him, and for whom there was plenty of alternative public health work waiting, vaccination would be dead in two years, as the vaccinator would not only not gain by it, but would lose credit through the depressing effects on the vital statistics of his district of the illness and deaths it causes, whilst it would take from him all the credit of that freedom from smallpox which is the result of good sanitary administration and vigilant prevention of infection.
"I will write a kowl so soon as the ponies, the bullocks, and the other things are counted before me and sent back whence they came. But first we will put the Government mark on such as have not been visited by Smallpox." In an undertone, to the vaccinator: "If you show you are afraid you'll never see Poona again, my friend."
These are alguazils, whose number is proportioned to the population; two witnesses, or assistants, who are charged with the confirmation of the acts of the deputy-governor for without their presence and sanction his acts would be considered null and void; a jouès de palma, or palm judge, with the functions of rural guard; a vaccinator, bound to be always furnished with vaccine matter, for newborn children; and a schoolmaster, charged with public instruction; finally, a sort of gendarmerie, to watch banditti and the state of the roads within the precincts of the commune and the neighbouring lands.
In the language of State, they had "manifested a strong objection to all prophylactic measures," had "forcibly detained the vaccinator," and "were on the point of neglecting or evading their tribal obligations."
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