Vaccinal immunity in relation to the serum treatment of small-pox, with a record of cases / by R.S. Thomson and Ernest L. Marsh.

  • Thomson, Robert Stevenson.
Date:
1897
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccinal immunity in relation to the serum treatment of small-pox, with a record of cases / by R.S. Thomson and Ernest L. Marsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    in 1896 by Beclere, Chambon and Menard, (i8), and undertaken with the object of deciding— 1. The iminunisi7igpower of the serum of vaccinated heifers, 2. Whether the immmtising power of serum is due to some chemical substance in solution or to active microbic elements, 3. The prophylactic and therapeutic properties of the serum of vaccinated heifers, 4. Whether the immunising power of such serum could be in- creased by a sticcession of vaccinal inoculations repeated at short intervals : these observers came to the following conclusions: 1. That serum of a vaccinated heifer collected during the most active period of the eruption, i.e., five to six days after vaccine inoculation, possesses properties conferring immunity against subsequent vaccination. 2. That the immunising action of serum from a vaccinated heifer is very rapid, a single subcutaneous injection of such serum m sufficient quantity, made immediately before free vaccination, being sufficient to modify the development of the subsequent vaccinal eruption to such an extent as almost to completely abort it ; while, on the other hand, the immunity lollowing on the mtroduction of vacci^ie under the skin shows Itself but slowly—a subcutaneous injection of vaccine lymph made immediately before free vaccination with the same lymph did not.modify in the slightest the development of the subse quent eruption. Still further, when the subcutaneous injection of vaccine lymph was given one, two and even three days before vaccination, it manifested no preventive power by any alteration in the external appearance of the vaccinal eruption. After the third day, the mimunity gradually attains its full development but does not seem complete until the eighth day, at which time at the earliest it is sufficiently developed to reader stedle Til iresh inoculations made under the epidermis 3. That the rapidity of the immunising action of the serum of a vaccinated heifer, when contrasted with the slowlv-de- veloped immunity which follows upon the subcutaneous injec- tion of vaccme, is sufficient to demonstrate that the serum owes ts immunising power to certain substances in solution, and no to the presence of the microbes (hypothetical) of vaccinia 4- - hat the progressively increasing immunity which follows roiTi four to eight days after subcutaneous J man fe t Itself in animals tested by vaccination during this period in hreo ways-(i) some of the inoculations prove^ompte^ steHL (2) others give rise to vesicles more or less rudimonf..; J aborted the gradual maturation of the immunity b ~ by the daily increased proportion of sterile inoculations (3)1he