State Board of Health of Massachusetts : a brief history of its organization and its work, 1869-1912 : material compiled mainly from the reports of the Board.

  • Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State Board of Health of Massachusetts : a brief history of its organization and its work, 1869-1912 : material compiled mainly from the reports of the Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    73/110 (page 43)
    put in his place. A considerable item of expense has been the great increase in the cost of horses. The total distribution of antitoxin since 1895 and the continual in- creased demand for the serum can be seen in the accompanying table: — In 1895-96 (year ended March 31), In 1896-97 (year ended March 31), In 1897-98 (year ended March 31), In 1898-99 (year ended March 31), In 1899-1900 (year ended March 31), In 1900-01 (year ended March 31), In 1901-02 (year ended March 31), In 1902-03 (year ended March 31), In 1903-04 (year ended March 31), During six months ended Sept. 30, 1904, In 1904-05 (year ended Sept. 30, 1905), During fourteen months ended Nov. 30, 1906, In 1906-07 (year ended Nov. 30, 1907), In 1907-OS (year ended Nov. 30, 1908), In 1908-09 (year ended Nov. 30, 1909), In 1909-10 (year ended Nov. 30, 1910), In ]910-11 (year ended Nov. 30, 1911), Bottles. 1,724 3,219 4,668 12,491 31.997 53,389 40,211 33.475 41,133 22,255 47,387 70,424 64,807 94,645 90,131 92,623 96,522 Total, 801,101 The production of vaccine lymph on a large scale has become necessary in the struggle of a dense population against such a pervasive virus as that of smallpox. Isolation does not succeed in itself alone to suppress an outbreak. The need for individual protection conferred by vaccine lymph had been fully appreciated by the medical profession during the nineteenth century. Hence the law in this State that children cannot enter the public schools without this protection. The success of the public sanitary organization in promptly isolating cases of infectious disease has led the public in recent years to regard the value of vaccination as a protection against smallpox with more indifference than our forefathers, who did not have boards of health and other sanitary organizations ready at a moment's notice to seize the first case and isolate it in smallpox hospitals. Abetting this indifference is a widespread fear among the more intelligent of the laity of the dangers of vaccination. This fear is chiefly an heirloom of former generations, when human vaccine lymph was used almost exclusively, and when cer- tain human infections were occasionally transmitted in the lymph.