ABSTRACT
An important dimension of the history of public health administration in colonial India is the nature of interactions between the ideas of administration, the influence of Western medicine, and indigenous practices. The reorganization of medical establishment came under serious consideration of the Mysore government since the rendition in 1881. The Sanitary Department had the major responsibility to scrutinize and compile birth and death returns, supervise vaccination, and control epidemics. An important development in the Sanitary Administration was the opening of the Epidemic Diseases Hospital in Bangalore in 1891. To administer the vaccine programme effectively, a preliminary survey of 'unprotected' children was undertaken. In Bangalore, Mysore, and Kolar Gold Fields, census was taken in the year 1914-1915. The Sanitary Commissioner of India, F. Norman White, in his preliminary report on influenza, observed: Influenza within the space of four or five months was responsible for the death of 2 percent of the total population of British India.
