Summary of lectures given at the second Summer School at Cambridge, 26th June-5th July, 1943 / the Women Public Health Officers' Association.

Date:
[1943?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Summary of lectures given at the second Summer School at Cambridge, 26th June-5th July, 1943 / the Women Public Health Officers' Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/52 page 4
    Inaugural Lecture THE PREVENTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES : : Dr. H. R. DEAN, Master of Trinity Hall. HAT immunity to further attacks of certain infectious diseases was conferred on recovered patients was observed long ago. Thucydides noted it during the great plague of Athens in 430 B.C. It was certainly realised in this country at the time of the Black Death (14th cent.) and the Great Plague (17th cent.). In the 18th century the attempt deliberately to acquire this immunity was begun. The Search for Acquired Immunity. In the 18th century direct inoculation was attempted by rubbing or scratching in blood or secretions of measles and scarlet fever patients in the hope of producing a mild form of the disease under the best possible conditions. In 1724 Lady Mary Wortley Montague observed and in her letters recorded the custom in Constantinople, of engrafting patients against small-pox. The treatment was carried out by “wise women” who, having assembled a party of children and young people, scratched selected veins with a needle and inserted as much matter taken from a small-pox pustule as would lie on the head of the needle. The wound was then bound up. “ The patient remains in bed for two days: the resulting attack produces twenty or thirty pox which leave no mark: all are well in eight days—none die.” Lady Mary made determined attempts to introduce this system of engrafting ” into England, and, in spite of the medical profession of that day, with some success. Towards the end of the 18th century, Edward Jenner observed that dairymaids who had suffered from cow-pox appeared to be immune from small-pox. His observations and experiments led him to the realisation that in certain cases a virus infecting animals and producing a similar disease in humans is capable of conferring immunity to allied diseases affecting humans only. Jenner’s reports were received with scepticism, but the early 19th century saw direct inoculation with cow-pox as a preventive against small-pox recognised and practised in the “ best circles,” including thé Royal Family. Improvements in methods could not have proceeded further if Pasteur and his co-workers had not discovered how to make pure cultures of bacteria. Pasteur’s observations led him to the discovery that “old” cultures of a specific micro-organism, i.e., with relatively few active bacteria, produced much milder, if any, immediate symptoms, but con- ferred as much immunity as when “ new,” i.e., actively virulent, cultures were used for inoculation. The next step was the discovery that the virulence of a culture of a specific micro-organism could be attenuated by passing through another animal, and that the animal’s blood serum could be used to immunise human beings. bs (ode
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3