Vaccination.
Vacca is the
Latin word for
cow; Vaccinia is the
Latin word and scientific name for
cow-pox; Vaccination the name for the process by which the vaccine disease (Vaccinia, Cow-pox, Kine pox,) is produced in a human being.
More than sixty years ago it was discovered that persons who had caught the
cow- pox from cows affected with this disease could not take the small-pox.
The
Southern Confederacy, in an interesting article on the subject, says:
‘
Sixty years ago (May 14, 1796,) matter was taken from the hand of
Sarah Nelmes, a dairy maid, who had been affected by her master's cows, and inserted into the arms of
James Phipps, a healthy boy about eight years old. On the 1st of July small-pox matter, fresh from pustule, was carefully inserted in several places in his arms, but no disease followed.
If small-pox matter be inserted under the skin of a healthy individual, he will have small pox; if the saliva of a mad dog be inserted hydrophobia will follow; if a lymph from a cow-pox vesicle be inserted cow-pox may be looked for as the natural consequence.
But if putrid matter from an ulcer or sore be used, it will be as likely to produce hydrophobia, measles, or whooping-cough, as cow pox. In fact, it will produce nothing but ulcerative and erysipelatous inflammation, which may even go so far as to endanger the life of the patient.
Let it, then, be clearly understood that vaccination is the production of cow-pox by the insertion of cow-pox matter from a cow-pox vesicle.
This matter should be taken from the vesicle on the eighth day after its insertion, in order to propagate most surely the vaccine infection.
’
Progress of the vaccine infection.
For one or two days after the insertion of the vaccine lymph there is scarcely anything to be seen at the point of introduction.
On the third day there is a little redness; on the fourth or fifth day the vesicle begins to appear.
This vesicle resembles a very small blister filled with clear water.
It continues to enlarge from day to day, until the eighth day, (one week after the first insertion.) when it measures from a quarter to half an inch across.
The vesicle is lower at the centre than at the circumference.
The clear lymph is not contained in one single chamber, but in ten or twelve, or even fourteen separate cells, so that one may be opened by a puncture without letting out the entire contents of the vesicle.
Until the ninth day the redness around the vesicle extends to only a small distance from it. After this it spreads much farther, and the
areola is formed.
This areola is a circular red border, which continues to increase until the eleventh or twelfth day, when its color begins to fade.
By this time a brown or mahogany colored crust has formed over the vesicle.
This becomes harder, and falls off on the twentieth day. The scar is less than half an inch in diameter, circular, depressed, with a well marked edge, and dotted with little pits from five to twelve in number, corresponding to the cells of the vesicle.
There is usually some fever on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh days.
Painful swellings in the armpit begin frequently on the seventh day.
If the vaccination be successful, and the patient be vaccinated in the other arm, four or five days after the first insertion of the virus, the second set of vesicles, though beginning so much later, will catch up with the others, so that from the ninth day after the first vaccination, they will closely resemble the first set, always being, however, much smaller.
How to vaccinate.
One week after the insertion of the vaccine lymph, the resulting vesicle furnishes lymph of the best quality for transfer to other arms.
Physicians frequently defer vaccination until the tenth or twelfth day. In many instances, even at this advanced stage, the purulent lymph will produce the proper infection, but it is far more reliable on the eighth day, just one week after the first insertion.
The vesicle should be carefully punctured with a lancet, needle, knife or any other suitable instrument, and the clear transparent lymph which comes forth should be neatly inserted under the cuticle of the left arm of the person to be vaccinated.
It should be introduced in three or four places, an inch apart.
This introduction may be effected by pricking the skin with a needle or making a superficial puncture with a lancet.
If there be much bleeding, it is to be feared that the lymph will not be introduced.
With care it is easy to vaccinate 20 or 30 persons from one vesicle, the smallest quantity being sufficient.
