Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/426

 418 SUL Small-pox.-Small-pox unlike cholera is epidemic in the district every year. It is never wholly absent, but during the cold weather the number of deaths is usually small. The epidemic season begins with the dry hot weather and lasts till June. On the setting in of the rains the number of deaths rapidly diminishes till it reaches a minimum about the beginning of the cold weather throughout which the disease remains comparatively inactive to wake again into activity in March. This, with but little vari- ation, is the history of the discase from year to year as shown by the mortuary returns, and these may be accepted as correctly representing, in a general way, the annual course of the disease. The regular recurrence of its outbreaks each hot weather is due, no doubt, partly to the increased temperature, but in greater measure to the free intercourse amongst the people at that period ; March, April, and May being the great months for marriages and visits amongst relatives. The mortality from small-pox varies according to the returns from 300 or 400 to 1,200 per annum. It is impossible to say how far these varia- tions are due to defective registration, but it is probable the actual morta- lity does vary considerably, a circumstance somewhat remarkable, seeing that the people remain equally unprotected from year to year, and adopt no precaution against the spread of the disease. This is a phenomenon common to all epidemic diseases, however, and is no more to be explained as regards small-pox than other diseases of the same class. The proportion of deaths to attacks cannot be precisely ascertained. It is probably not very high, judging from the fact that at least 90 per cent. of the population are attacked with small-pox before they reach adult age. So common in the disease that it is looked upon as inevitable that every one should have the disease at least once in his life, and the sooner the better after infancy. The people do not, however, attempt to anticipate the natural course of things by practising inoculation ; this does not appear to be anywhere practised throughout the district. A few vaccinators have been employed by Government during the last 3 or 4 years, but the efforts of these have very properly been concentrated chiefly on the small town of Sultanpur itself and its neighbourhood, and the offer of vaccination has not as yet been extended to the great mass of the people. Judging from the small progress the prophylactic has made in the esteem of the small section of the people which has been offered it, it will be long before small-pox ceases to be one of the chief scourges of the district. Cattle epidemics.-The principal epidemic disease that prevails amongst cattle in the district is rinderpest. It is the only one alluded to in the districtsanitary report, and though foot and mouth disease is said to be also prevalent, there is no definite information regarding it, and it is probable many cases of so-called foot and mouth disease are really cases of rinder- pest, the ulceration of the mouth attending the latter disease giving Tise to the mistake. The symptoms of rinderpest as observed in the district are those usually ascribed to the disease. They are briefly fever, bloody purging,