Report on the progress of practical medicine, in ... midwifery and the diseases of women and children : during the years 1844-5 / by C. West.

  • West, Charles, 1816-1898.
Date:
1845
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of practical medicine, in ... midwifery and the diseases of women and children : during the years 1844-5 / by C. West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the subject agree in advocating revaccination, and likewise coincide pretty nearly in the arguments they adduce in its favour. The late Dr. Forry,* whose premature death is a loss to medical science, M. Schaffer, f Dr. Losetti,$ and the candidates for the prize offered by the French Institute for the best essay 4 on vaccination and its influence on sinallpox,’§ agree on this point. Their main arguments are derived from the fact that while smallpox occurs but seldom after vaccination in children under ten or twelve years, its attacks are much more frequent after this period, and increase both in frequency and severity up to about the age of 35, when the constitution seems to acquire a comparative insusceptibility to the poison of variola. Hence they deduce the practical inference that a second vaccination should be performed at about the age of 15; and its repetition again at 25 has not been without its advocates. Of course there are many facts by which they support their opinion, as well as some objections that might be raised to their inferences, mention of which is prevented by the limits of this Report. Dr. Fiard |] inquires into the alleged degeneracy of vaccine virus by its transmission through many individuals. He is a believer in the reality of this occurrence; the first indication of which he thinks is presented by the dimi¬ nution in the duration of the eruption as compared with that of an earlier date, and that a difference in the development of the vesicle on the 8th or 9th day is not observed till afterwards. He applies this hypothesis to the vaccine virus of 183fj; the vesicle from which runs the same course with that produced by the virus of 1844 up to the 8th day. At the 9th day desiccation of the vesicles of the old vaccine commences, and is complete by the 13th or 14th day, while the new runs its course more slowly and its desiccation is not complete till the 16th or 17th day. He states that a similar difference was observed some years ago between the vesicles resulting from the old Jennerian vaccine, and the then new virus of 1836. Dr. v. FradenecW has discovered the original vac- cinia among some cows in part of Carinthia. The vesicles which it produced differed in no respect from those which resulted from the old virus, a fact from which he draws inferences unfavorable to the alleged degeneracy of the vaccine matter. Dr. Pluskal** gives an account of a series of experiments on retrovaccination, which he carried on for several years on a great variety of animals. It appears that it was only in those animals in whom vaccinia occurs spontaneously that vaccination was followed by the appearance of characteristic vesicles, and that the experiment succeeded best in those animals which were most nearly allied to the ox tribe. He regards the results of retrovaccination when practiced carefully on the cow, as affording a good criterion of the goodness of the lymph, but does not believe in its utility as a means of regenerating a de¬ teriorated virus. Dr. A. F. Tassanij-f relates a very singular history of the apparent communi¬ cation of syphilis to several infants by vaccinating them from a child in whom syphilitic symptoms subsequently appeared, though no sign of any such di¬ sease existed at the time when vaccination was performed. Dr. OsbreyJJ relates two cases of gangrenous inflammation of the vaccine vesicle coming on about the 12th day, and proving perilous, though not fatal to two children, one of whom was 18 months, the other 5 years old. In one of the cases in addition to the local gangrene, sloughing of the mucous mem- brane of the mouth occurred, attended with hemorrhage from it. Recovery was slow in both instances. No cause could be assigned for the occurrence, as the previous health of both children had been good. [Dr. Osbrey quotes Dr. Labatt as mentioning this accident, but is apparently unacquainted with * New York Journ. of Med. Sept. 1844. ^ Gaz. Mdd. de Paris, 11 Mai 1844 )| Bull, del’Acad. Roy. de Med. Nov. 30, 1844. ** Oesterr. Med. Wochenschr. Marz 1844. tt Dublin Medical Journal, March 1844, p. 133. f Med. Zeitung, March 27, 1844. § Revue Mddicale, Mars 1845. 1 Oesterr. Med. Jahrb. Mai 1844. ft Gaz. Med. di Milano, Ottobre 14, 1843.