On preventive inoculation / by W.M. Haffkine.

Date:
[1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On preventive inoculation / by W.M. Haffkine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    different animals, so varied is the result of the application of such virus from the point of view of immunity conferred by it. There are animals in whom the inoculation leaves no lasting effect whatever. In others a very temporary immunity is created, vanish- ing entirely in a few days. In other cases again, a condition appears that produces the impression that, after the treatment, the animal has become more susceptible to a subsequent infection than is a normal animal not so treated. And lastly, there may be found animals in which the same virus will produce a firm and enduring immunity. In general I believe it to be admissible that in the case of every disease, and with regard to every species of animal, a form of pro- phylactic treatment may be found that will produce immunity in that particular case; but that same method of treatment may or may not be applicable to another animal or to another disease affecting the same animal. It is the failure of taking into account this variation of circumstances that, I believe, more than anything else has checked the success of a number of experimenters. Immunity from Attack, and Resistance to actual Symptoms of Disease. The study of the anti-cholera inoculation in India has revealed a new problem in the subject of prophylactic treatment. The particular character of cholera epidemics, which appear un- expectedly, do not last, and in places where they are permanent, are spread and scattered over large areas, makes the study of that disease and the demonstration of the effect of a preventive treatment in its case a matter of much greater difficulty than is the case in localised contagious diseases, like smallpox, or in plague; and although a large amount of material has been collected already, it is desirable that further observations be still added to the present ones confirmatory of the results obtained. The information collected permits, however, already of pointing out very important features in the working of the anti-cholera inoculation. The most extended and continuous observations on the subject were organised by the Municipality of Calcutta, upon the enlightened initiative of Professor W. J.Simpson, late Health Officer, and under his continuous supervision, as well as my own. These observations refer to the cholera stricken suburbs of Calcutta, the so-called « busties or groups of huts situated round the tanks, where rain-water is collected during the monsoon. Some 8000 people were inoculated in those localities, and for two years obser vations were made and the results collected as to the occur- rences of cholera in the huts inhabited by the inoculated.