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Variolation, Vaccination and Popular Resistance in Early Colonial South India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Niels Brimnes
Affiliation:
Department of History, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
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The campaigns to prevent smallpox in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are commonly understood as the first attempts of large-scale state-sponsored medical intervention in society as such. Before the discovery of the cowpox vaccine inoculation with variolous matter—known as variolation—was the most widespread preventive against the disease. This practice was well established in parts of Asia and introduced to Europe by Mary Wortley Montagu from Constantinople in 1721. While variolation achieved some popularity—particularly in Britain—Edward Jenner's discovery of the cowpox vaccine in 1796 intensified the efforts to combat smallpox, and vaccination was introduced to large parts of the world within a few years. Although the spread of immunization against smallpox is commonly described as highly successful, the campaigns also represented an early encounter between an elitist state-sponsored medicine and various forms of popular resistance.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

References

1 F F Cartwright, A social history of medicine, London, Longman, 1977, p. 92; Claudia Huerkamp, ‘The history of smallpox vaccination in Germany: a first step in the medicalization of the general public’, J. contemp. Hist., 1985, 20: 617–35, p. 617.

2 While variolation might have been practised on the fringes of European society, it was perceived as an “Eastern” practice in the eighteenth century. For references to long-standing variolation in Wales and Scotland, see J Kirkpatrick, The analysis of inoculation, comprising the history, theory, and practice of it, London, J Buckland, 1761, pp. 184–5. P Razzell, The conquest of smallpox, Firle, Caliban Books, 1977, p. 1.

3 Huerkamp, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 617. I shall use “immunization” to describe both variolation and vaccination, while “inoculation” refers only to the technique of variolation.

4 Paul R Greenough, ‘Variolation and vaccination in South Asia c.1700–1865: a preliminary note’, Soc. Sci. Med., 1980, 14D: 345–47.

5 David Arnold, Colonizing the body: state medicine and epidemic disease in nineteenth-century India, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993, p. 138.

6 Gyan Prakash has recently argued that the simple dichotomy of dominance versus resistance does not apply to the creation of difference in colonial India, not even in “scientific” areas. Gyan Prakash, Another reason: science and the imagination of modern India, Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 19–20.

7 Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 130. Arnold concludes that variolation was widespread in Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Orissa. It was also common around Varanasi (Benares), in parts of Punjab, in Rajasthan, Sindh, Gujarat and in scattered parts of Maharashtra and central India.

8 The Brahmans themselves were equally unclear about the introduction of variolation in the area. See a statement from four “Woodiah” Brahmans in British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter BL-OIOC) F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fols 84–8. One observer claimed that variolation was practised by the Brahmans among the Worriahs, a brave, handsome, but less civilized tribe from the interior of the northern part of the Madras Presidency. Whitelaw Ainslie, ‘Observations respecting the small-pox and inoculation in eastern countries; with some account of the introduction of vaccination into India’, Trans. R. Asiatic Soc. Great Britain and Ireland, 1830, 2: 52–73, p. 63.

9 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 84.

10 Ibid., fols 15, 41.

11 BL-OIOC, P/252/20, Madras Military and Secret Proceedings, 16 and 24 Dec. 1787, fols 1392–3, 1546–9. Tamil Nadu State Archive, Chennai (hereafter TNSA), Surgeon General's Records (hereafter SGR) vol. 1, fols 193–4, 202–3, 210–11. TNSA, Military Department: General Orders vol. 7, fols 44–5. In Kanara, on the western coast of the peninsula, variolation was also introduced on British initiative (presumably from Bombay) in the 1780s. Sumit Guha, Health and population in South Asia: from earliest times to the present, London, Hurst, 2001, p. 141.

12 TNSA, SGR vol. 3, fols 15–17, and vol. 4, fols 5, 12–14.

13 TNSA, SGR vol. 12, fols 179–80. BL-OIOC, F/4/96 no. 1953 Board's Collections, fols 5–6.

14 TNSA, SGR vol. 4, fol. 3 and vol. 10, fols 41–6.

15 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fols 11–12, 15. TNSA, SGR vol. 12, fols 237–8.

16 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fols 2, 105–9. Pagoda was the current gold coin of the Coromandel Coast in the eighteenth century. 1 pagoda was worth approximately 9 shillings or 3½ rupees.

17 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 6 Apr. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai District Records (District Records appears hereafter as DR) vol. 1181, fols 267–8.

18 TNSA, SGR vol. 13A, fols 446, 487. The lack of inoculators around Madras became apparent in the summer of 1802 during an outbreak of smallpox in the “Black Town”, the crowded indigenous suburbs immediately outside Fort St George.

19 A letter from the government to the Medical Board, dated 23 Dec. 1802, in which they enquire about the quality of the “Cow Pox lately introduced” indicates the arrival of the vaccine at Madras. BL-OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collections no. 2613, fols 31–2. The vaccine might have arrived a few months earlier. Dominik Wujastyk writes that a boy was vaccinated and sent from Madras to Calcutta in October. Dominik Wujastyk, ‘“A pious fraud”: the Indian claims for pre-Jennerian smallpox vaccination’, in G J Meulenbeld and D Wujastyk (eds), Studies on Indian medical history, Groningen, Egbert Forsten, 1987, pp. 131–67, on p. 151.

20 TNSA, SGR vol. 13A, fols 501–2.

21 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 23 July 1804, entered with enclosures in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fol. 167. I only came across this reference to the continued use of variolation in south India and it is perhaps surprising that this report came from the southern part where variolation was not established before the British introduced it. The unreliability of early vaccination has been noted by a number of scholars. Harish Naraindas, ‘Care, welfare and treason: the advent of vaccination in the 19th century’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1998, n.s. 32: 67–96, p. 70. S Bhattacharya, M Harrison and M Worboys, Expunging variola: public health and the control and eradication of smallpox in India (forthcoming).

22 Arnold emphasizes that vaccination had its season, too. However, the evidence treated here indicates vaccination activities outside the period from December to March. Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 140. Losing the vaccine potency was particularly unfortunate, because cowpox was rare, if not entirely absent in India. For the contemporary view that cowpox did not exist naturally in India, see Ainslie, op. cit., note 8 above, p. 66.

23 OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collections no. 2613, fols 42–3, 60–3. See also the government advertisement published on 19 Jan. 1803, fols 69–75 and fols 77–84.

24 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 23 July 1804, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fols 164–6. According to these figures vaccination began in September 1802.

25 For Bombay, see J Banthia and T Dyson, ‘Smallpox in nineteenth-century India’, Popul. Dev. Rev., 1999, 25: 649–80, fig. 2 on p. 658. The scheme adopted in Bengal was based on fixed vaccination stations and turned out to be very inefficient. The system initially adopted in Madras was based on itinerant vaccinators and seems to have resembled the much more successful system inaugurated in the Bombay Presidency in 1827 and later adopted in Madras in 1865. Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 136, 144–5. The conclusions drawn from vaccination statistics must be taken to express broad tendencies only. For a warning against the reliability of vaccination statistics throughout the nineteenth century, see Bhattacharya, et al., op. cit., note 21 above.

26 A similar pattern has been found in Britain, where well-established variolation seems to have inhibited the dissemination of vaccination. Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 77, 99–100.

27 TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fols 84–9. Proceedings of the Medical Board, 21 May 1804, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fol. 150.

28 TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fols 106–7.

29 TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fols 163, 268.

30 TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fol. 103. This passage also indicates how unreliable early vaccination was.

31 Government resolution on the proceedings of the Medical Board, 21 May 1804, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fol. 150.

32 James Anderson, Correspondence for the extermination of small-pox. Madras, collected and reprinted by Francis Lawrance, 1804, pp. 6, 18.

33 BL-OIOC P/255/43 Madras Military Proceedings (hereafter MMP), 21 Dec. 1804, fols 6404–15.

34 BL-OIOC F/4/201, Board's Collections no. 4544, fols 4, 31–2.

35 BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fols 4063–5. F/4/201, Board's Collections no. 4544, fols 9–10. F/4/268, Board's Collections no. 5891, fols 31, 38, 42, 48–9, 54–5, 60; F/4/382, Board's Collections no. 9625, fol. 126.

36 BL-OIOC P/294/1, Madras Board of Revenue Proceedings, 12 Nov. 1821, fol. 10051.

37 Dharma Kumar and Tapan Raychauduri (eds), The Cambridge economic history of India, 2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1982–83, vol. 2, pp. 467–8. This figure is of course uncertain. It is based on enumerations conducted in 1822 and 1836–7 and does not include the territories of Princely States.

38 Arnold 1993, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 120; Bhattacharya, et al., op. cit., note 21 above.

39 Quoted from John Shoolbred, Report on the progress of vaccine inoculation in Bengal, from the period of its introduction in November 1802 to the end of the year 1803, Calcutta, Honorable Company's Press, 1804, Reprint: London, Blacks and Parry, 1805, p. 73.

40 Ibid., 74. On Sitala, see Susan S Wadley, ‘Sitala, the cool one’, Asian Folklore Studies, 1980, 39: 33–62; Ralph W Nicholas, ‘The Goddess Sitala and epidemic smallpox in Bengal’, J. Asian Stud., 1981, 41: 21–44. The south Indian equivalent of Sitala was the less prominent goddess Mariamman.

41 Shoolbred, op. cit., note 39 above, p. 75.

42 Ainslie, op. cit., note 8 above, pp. 63–4.

43 William Ward, A view of the history, literature, and mythology of the Hindoos, 2nd ed., 2 vols, Serampore, Mission Press, 1818, vol. 1, p. 477. Ward was referred to by Whitelaw Ainslie as well as by Daniel Robert Thompson, Superintendent of Vaccination in Madras in the mid-nineteenth century. Ainslie, op. cit., note 8 above, p. 63; Daniel Robert Thompson, A treatise on vaccination, Madras, Gantz Brothers, 1864, p. 3.

44 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 83.

45 James Moore, The history of the small pox, London, printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815, pp. 253–4, 265. Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 20. Maisie May, ‘Inoculating the urban poor in the late eighteenth century’, Br. J. Hist. Sci., 1997, 30: 291–305, pp. 304, 294–6. The simplification was in large part due to the gradual adoption of the method developed by Robert and Daniel Sutton in the 1760s.

46 Kirkpatrick, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 301. Cf. Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 12–13.

47 Baron Dimsdale, The present method of inoculating for the small-pox, 6th ed., London, W Owen, 1772, pp. 4, 78. It did occur to Dimsdale that the dietary preparation might be superflous, but he dared not “by way of experiment, dispense with the use of measures that had been hitherto so successful”. Ibid., p. 82. See Kirkpatrick, op. cit., note 2, pp. 283–6, for similar considerations. Elaborate preparation of the patient lost importance in Britain in last decades of the eighteenth century. Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 14–16. On the conceptual level, the attempt to keep the patient cold found a parallel in the Indian belief in Sitala. According to Susan Wadley, Sitala “abhors heat and all things hot and she eats primarily stale (cold) food and other cool things”. Wadley, op. cit., note 40 above, p. 54.

48 Dimsdale, op. cit., note 47 above, pp. 23, 30, 33, 79–80. Kirkpatrick, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 193, 329, 344.

49 Shoolbred, op. cit., note 39 above, p. 73. It is, however, not possible to establish an absolute distinction between an “Indian” and a “British” method. For references to Indians using fresh matter, see Nicholas, op. cit., note 40 above, p. 28. A rare example of storing variolous matter for years in Britain was reported from the Shetland Islands in 1792. Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 23.

50 While dried matter was stored from season to season in Bengal, Kirkpatrick only claimed that he had “certain Demonstration” that variolous matter could remain active for several weeks. Kirkpatrick op. cit., note 2 above, p. 211. Dimsdale's account conveys a similar impression: “If neither an inoculated patient is at hand, nor anyone in the neighbourhood has a distinct kind of the natural disease, a thread may be used as in the common manner, provided that the thread be very recently infected; but I think it ought to be used as soon as possible after being charged with infecting matter.” Dimsdale, op. cit., note 47 above, p. 29.

51 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 29 October 1804, entered with enclosures in: TNSA, Madurai DR, vol. 1190, fols 271–2. For references to the use of infected thread, see, for example, Shoolbred, op. cit. note 39, p. 45. TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fols 84, 173.

52 Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, p. ix.

53 Naraindas, op. cit., note 21 above, p. 67.

54 Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 141.

55 S Bhattacharya, ‘Re-devising Jennerian vaccines? European technologies, Indian innovation and the control of smallpox in South Asia, 1850–1950’, in B Pati and M Harrison (eds), Health, medicine and empire: perspectives on colonial India, New Delhi, Orient Longman 2001, pp. 217–69, on pp. 255–6, 261; Bhattacharya, et al., op. cit, note 21 above; Naraindas, op. cit., note 21 above, p. 86.

56 Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 143–4; Naraindas, op. cit., note 21 above, p. 70. For an even more pronounced expression of the difference between Western and Indian conceptualizations of disease, see Frédérique Apfell-Marglin, ‘Smallpox in two systems of knowledge’, WIDER Working Papers, 1987, No. 17.

57 Thompson, op. cit., note 43 above, p. 20.

58 Ibid, p. 21.

59 BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fols 4096–7. See also Sawmy Naik's account printed in Indian Medical Gazette, Oct. 1902: 413–14.

60 Neither troops nor prisoners seem to have been subject to compulsory immunization. For the voluntary inoculation of troops, see, for example, TNSA, SGR vol. 12, fol. 261. In March 1802 the sub-collector of Bhovany wrote to the commanding officer at Erode that inoculation among prisoners ought to be encouraged but should rest “upon the consent of the Natives themselves”. He further wished it to be understood that he took upon himself “the responsibility of the bodily safety of the Prisoners”. TNSA, Coimbatore DR vol. 593, fols 70–1. I shall continue to use the the more idiomatic term “resistance” in the text.

61 BL-OIOC F/4/268, Board's Collections no. 5891, fol. 67. BL-OIOC F/4/382, Board's Collections no. 9625, fol. 30.

62 TNSA, SGR vol. 13A, fols 312–13. Anderson, op. cit., note 32 above, p. 18.

63 TNSA, Coimbatore DR vol. 592, fols 190–4; Proceedings of the Medical Board, 21 May 1804, entered with enclosures in: TNSA, Madurai DR, vol. 1190, fols 161, 163.

64 Paraiyans (or Pariah) refers to a numerous low ranking community of Tamils. Since there are no references to the non-Tamil equivalents of Paraiyans, the term probably refers to all low-ranking communities (approximately what would later be termed “untouchables” and even later “harijans” and “dalits”).

65 This is of course based on the assumption that immunizers from a specific group tended to practise within that group.

66 TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fol. 60. TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1147, fols 54–5.

67 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 98. Anderson, op. cit., note 32 above, p. 18. The Zamindar of Chintapilly had been variolated in the 1790s and subsequent vaccination would not have had any impact on his immunity.

68 TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fols 174–5.

69 Thus the Indian terms chosen for cowpox seem to have generated unfortunate connotations among Indians. Wujastyk, op. cit., note 19 above, pp. 152–3. BL-OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collections no. 2613, fols 125–6. In Europe, too, uncertainty about the relation between humans and an animal disease caused some anxiety. Cartwright, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 89. Eberhard Wolff, Einschneidende Massnahmen. Pockenschutzimpfung und traditionale Gesellschaft im Württemberg des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 1998, pp. 442–4.

70 That popular resistance should be seen essentially as a political protest against the disciplinarian activities of the state has been suggested by Apffel-Marglin. This explanation seems, however, far too one-sided. Apffel-Marglin, op. cit., note 56 above, pp. 18, 22.

71 BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fols 4084–5.

72 TNSA, Tanjore DR vol. 3207, fols 51–5.

73 BL-OIOC F/4/201, Board's Collections no. 4544, fols 39–40.

74 Ibid., fol. 40.

75 Ibid., fols 41–4.

76 Blackburne's letter was clearly utilized in the debate between Mackenzie and the Medical Board.

77 TNSA, Trichinopoly DR vol. 3661, fol. 159. TNSA, SGR vol. 14, fols 252–3. On smallpox as a divine possession, see Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 123.

78 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collection no. 1953, fols 2, 15–16, 97.

79 Olivier Faure, ‘La vaccination dans la région Lyonnaise au début du XIXe siècle: résistances ou revendications populaires’, Cahiers d'histoire, 1984, 29: 191–209, pp. 194, 208.

80 Mathias Steinmann, ‘Impf-Alltag im 19. Jahrhundert. Das Verhältnis zwischen Ärtzen und Bevölkerung vor dem Hintergrund der Pockenschutzimpfung im Kanton Luzern’, Gesnerus, 1995, 52: 66–82, pp. 72, 75, 79.

81 Wolff, op. cit., note 69 above, pp. 413–36. The German concepts analysed by Wolff included “Gleichgültigkeit” and “Vorurteil”.

82 Razzell, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 42–44, 51–53, 96. Anne Hardy, ‘Smallpox in London: factors in the decline of the disease in the nineteenth century’, Med. Hist., 1983, 27: 111–38, p. 115.

83 Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 27.

84 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collection no. 1953, fols 45–6. The Zamindar referred to is the Zamindar of Chintapilly, and it is noteworthy that this circular did not even reveal that the Zamindar had been inoculated by a British surgeon.

85 Ibid., fol. 107.

86 Ibid., fol. 108.

87 TNSA, SGR vol. 1, fol. 194; BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 43.

88 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 3 Apr. 1801, with enclosures entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fol 266. “Northern Brahmins” refers to the indigenous inoculators in the northern parts of the Presidency.

89 TNSA, Coimbatore DR vol. 592, fol. 194.

90 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 50.

91 Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 127–8, 139.

92 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 6 Apr. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fol. 267.

93 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 6 Apr. 1801, with enclosures entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fols 268–9. “Malabar” means Tamil.

94 TNSA, SGR vol. 13A, fols 445–8.

95 BL-OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collections no. 2613, fols 50–3.

96 Ibid., fols 69–75 (another copy: fols 77–84).

97 This was, however, followed by a more specific reference to the fact that the vaccine emanated “from a source sanctified by the several sacred Laws of their Hindoo Religion.” Ibid., fols 73–4, 82.

98 TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1147, fol. 218; Trichinopoly DR, vol. 3663, fol. 199.

99 TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1149, fols 94–5.

100 Wujastyk, op. cit., note 19 above. Also in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British surgeon Thomas Coats in Poona composed a pamphlet, written in Marathi and in keeping with regional cultural idioms, which aimed to convince Indians of the benefits of vaccination. Coats did not, however, claim that vaccination had been known in India, but gave full credit to Jenner. Guha, op. cit., note 11 above, pp. 140–55.

101 The claim that vaccination was known in ancient India was of course consistent with the general “orientalist”—and later also nationalist—notions that located any scientific rationality which the Indians might have possessed in a remote golden age. See, for instance, Prakash, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 86–117, 230. For a comparable attempt to locate scientific astronomy in ancient India, see ibid., pp. 71–2.

102 Ainslie, op. cit., note 8 above, p. 64. The attitude towards variolation was different in Bengal where it represented a mightier rival to vaccination. A report from 1850 depicted variolation as “a murderous trade”. Arnold, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 138.

103 I have dealt with this issue more generally in ‘Coming to terms with the native practitioner—indigenous doctors in colonial service in South India 1800–1825’, in S Bhattacharya (ed.), Imperialism, medicine and South Asia: a socio-political perspective, 1800–1950, Delhi, Orient Longman (forthcoming).

104 See the “circular advertisement” from Guntur, dated 27 Nov. 1800. BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fols 44–5. For the problem of attending to other duties, see fols 75–6.

105 TNSA, Coimbatore DR vol. 592, fols 89, 103. The letter assuming that indigenous doctors would be instructed is also included in BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fol. 36, but gives the collector in Salem as author.

106 BL-OIOC F/4/96, Board's Collections no. 1953, fols 43, 62.

107 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 6 Apr. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fol. 267–8.

108 Letter from the government to the Board of Revenue, dated 3 Apr. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fol 265. Government proclamation, 21 Dec. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1182, fols 443–4.

109 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 6 Apr. 1801, with enclosures entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1181, fols 268–9. Government proclamation, 21 Dec. 1801, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1182, fols 443–4. TNSA, Tanjore DR, vol. 3207, fols 51–5.

110 TNSA, Trichinopoly DR vol. 3661, fols 158–9. In 1801 the collector of Coimbatore argued along similar lines. TNSA, Coimbatore DR vol. 592, fol. 194.

111 BL-OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collections no. 2613, fols 42–3, 60–3.

112 On Moresevary Pillai, see TNSA, Trichinopoly DR vol. 3643, fol. 60. On Sawmy Naik, see Indian Medical Gazette, op. cit., note 59 above; BL-OIOC F/4/153, Board's Collection no. 2613, fol. 108; BL-OIOC P/322/4, Madras Judicial Proceedings, 14 Dec. 1805, fol. 2439.

113 Proceedings of the Medical Board, 21 May 1804, entered in: TNSA, Madurai DR vol. 1190, fols 152–3.

114 BL-OIOC P/255/43 MMP, 21 Dec. 1804, fols 6404–15, quoted from fol. 6411.

115 Ibid., fols 6390–91.

116 Ibid., fols 6385–90. BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fol. 3976.

117 BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fol. 3999.

118 Ibid., fol. 4001.

119 Ibid., fols 3983–4.

120 Ibid., fols 4063–5.

121 Ibid., fol. 3985. See also Anderson, op. cit., note 32 above.

122 Letter included in BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fol. 4081.

123 Ibid., fols 4082, 4087–9.

124Asiatic Annual Register, 1805, Chronicle, pp. 1–4, quoted from p. 3.

125 Letter included in BL-OIOC P/255/53 MMP, 19 June 1805, fols 4093–4.

126 Ibid., fols 4094–5. As pre-colonial immunizers seem to have been itinerant groups, Dalton's proposal did not imply a return to an original “Indian” form of employment.

127 BL-OIOC P/255/51 MMP, 14 May 1805, fols 3094–9.

128 BL-OIOC F/4/201, Board's Collections no. 4544, fols 22–3.

129 Ibid., fols 4, 31, 49.

130 BL-OIOC F/4/268, Board's Collections no. 5891, fols 77–80.

131 Ibid., fols 39–40.

132 Ibid., fols 48–50.