Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Vaccine and vaccination / by George Dock. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![[110] glass. This was tied together with another glass and the two kept dry until wanted. Another was to soak threads in the virus, dry them and keep them in bottles. Or the virus was dried on elongated glass stoppers and the stoppers fixed in bottles, or it was dried on lancets, quills, or even thorns. On account of the rusting of steel instruments, with damage to the latter if not to the virus, silver or gilt lancets were used. Needles were used sometimes, and a Dr. Carl, in Prague, invented a forked silver needle. Small glass tubes, such as barometer tubes, were also used, sealed at the ends by fusing. The use of crusts or scabs came comparatively late. The Early Technic. There were many modifications of the method of inoculat- ing, though the details were for the most part derived from the earlier small-pox inoculations. Jenner first used short incisions, or punctures. When threads were used, they were cut in short lengths, placed in shallow incisions, and kept there by adhesive plaster. From the fact that some operators renewed the threads on the third day we may assume that the method was not always successful. Sometimes the dried material, on threads, glass or instruments, was softened by soaking in blood, or by exposing to the vapor of boiling water, or soaking in water, or even saliva. More compli- cated methods of getting an inoculating surface were some- times followed. Cross-scratching seems to have been a later invention. Fly-blisters were used at an early period, even a skin-trepan was invented, and as late as 1902 a cautery-ham- mer was devised, for raising a blister, in the cavity of which vaccine was to be inoculated. At various times since the in- vention of the hypodermic syringe, that instrument has been used for injecting vaccine virus into the skin or subcutaneous tissue. Although it seems to serve the purpose, it has no great advantage, and some disadvantages. One of the common details of vaccinating developed from the use of humanized virus, viz., the practice of making multiple lesions. It was thought that the taking of part of the lymph lessened the effect on the vaccinifer, and so several vesicles were produced, one at least being untouched. Al-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21027031_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
