Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/200

140 varying from one to two annnsannas [sic]; the less amount if the number of children is great, the greater amount if the number is small. The cow-pox has not, I believe, been introduced into this district amongst the natives, except at the head station. Elsewhere the small-pox inoculators have been found its opponents; but, as far as I can understand, their opposition does not arise from interested motives, for the cow-pox inoculation would give them as much labour and profit as they now have. Their opposition arises, I am assured, from the prejudice against using cow-pox. The veneration in which the cow is held is well known, and they fear to participate in a practice which seems to be founded on some injury done to that animal when the matter was originally extracted. The spread of the cow-pox would probably be most effectually accomplished by the employment of Musalman inoculators, whose success might in due time convince the brahman inoculators of their mistake.

Midwives are another class of practitioners that may be noticed, although it has been denied that Hindus have any. An eminent London physician, in his examination before the Medical Committee of the House of Commons, is stated to have affirmed that the inhabitants of China have no women-midwives, and no practitioners in midwifery at all. “Of course,” it is added, “the African nations and the Hindus are the same.” I enquired and noted the number of women-midwives (there is not a man-midwife in the country) in the villages of Nattore, and find that they amount to 297. They are no doubt sufficiently ignorant, as are probably the majority of women-midwives at home.

Still lower than the village doctors there is a nmerousnumerous [sic] class of pretenders who go under the general name of conjurors or charmers. The largest division of this class are the snake-conjurors; their number in the single police sub-division of Nattore being not less than 722. There are few villages without one, and in some villages there are as many as ten. I could, if it were required, indicate the villages and the number in each; but instead of incumbering Table I. with such details, I have judged it sufficient to state the total number in this place. They profess to cure the bites of poisonous snakes by incantations or charms. In this district, particularly during the rainy season, snakes are numerous and excite much terror among the villagers. Nearly the whole district forming, it is believed, an old bed of the Ganges, lies very low; and the rapid increase of the waters during the rainy season drives the land-snakes from their holes, and they seek refuge in the houses of the inhabitants, who hope to obtain relief from their bites by the incantations of the conjurors. These take nothing for the performance of their rites, or for the cures they pretend to have performed. All is pecuniarily gratuitous to the individual, but they have substantial advantages which enable them to be thus liberal. When the inhabitants of a village hitherto without