The inoculation accident at Manila, P.I., in 1906 / by W.M. Haffkine ; and, Accidental inoculation with the virus of plague / by Paul C. Freer.

  • Haffkine, W. M. (Waldemar Mordecai), 1860-1930.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The inoculation accident at Manila, P.I., in 1906 / by W.M. Haffkine ; and, Accidental inoculation with the virus of plague / by Paul C. Freer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    17/20 (page 15)
    instead of operating with that substance itself, they advocate the plan of leaving it to soak in water, at the temperature of the incubator, and using tbe resulting soluble extraction ;—a plan to which, as Dr. Freer mentions, it has been objected at the last International Medical Congress in Berlin that the extraction might not have the protective effect which the vaccine itself had. The Manila officers are under the im- pression that one of the advantages of the watery extraction is that it is free from the possibility of misadventure which they have had with the vaccine. The same department of the Manila ins- titute that prepares the extraction of the cholera vaccine prepares also soluble products of other microbes, such as the toxine of diphtheria; that of tetanus, of which the admixture of a few c.c.s would, of course, suffice to kill a horse ; probably, solutions of snake venoms for the preparation of anti-venene ; and so forth. If these micro- bial toxines and solutions, or, for the matter of that, any alkaloids or other di ngs were to be so kept as to permit of their being inadvertently mixed with one another; if, before using them under such circumstances, the inscriptions on the receptacles were not ascertained ; physical differences of the contents overlooked ; and the contents mixed together and used ; that is, if a concurrence of circumstances took place iden- tical on nil points with that which they have had the misfortune of having fit the time of the late accident,—the extraction of the cholera vaccine would obviously be exposed to the same possibility of misadventure as has occurred in the use of the vaccine. Of course, it is not suggested that the above is the condition prevailing normally in the Manila laboratory. The latter has, in a few years,