Vaccination : its natural history and pathology : being the Milroy lectures for 1898 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London / by S. Monckton Copeman.

  • Copeman, S. Monckton (Sydney Monckton), 1862-
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination : its natural history and pathology : being the Milroy lectures for 1898 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London / by S. Monckton Copeman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the multiplication in it of all “ extraneous ” organisms, and eventually to destroy them altogether, without at the same time injuring its potency for vaccination. These bacteria evidently find in the lymph, especially when removed from the body, a suitable medium for their subsequent multiplication, while at the same time it would appear that growth and multiplication of them has as result the gradual inhibition of the specific effect proper to the vaccine virus itself. Upon all grounds, then, the obvious indication for my guidance was not only to prevent such multiplication of “ extraneous ” organisms subsequent to storage in the usual manner, but, if possible, to remove them altogether as soon as the lymph was taken from the living subject, without injury to the actual contagium of vaccinia. Without detailing the various experiments adopted with this object in view, it is necessary here to state briefly the lines on which the work was carried out. In the first place, trial was made of the method of exposure of lymph for definite periods to a temperature consider- ably above blood-heat, which had, in the hands of Kitasato, met with conspicuous success in the isolation of the bacillus of tetanus. Proceeding in this manner, and in every experiment observing the precaution of making control cultures, I presently arrived at a tem- perature, exposure to which is apparently incompatible with the continued existence of those micro-organisms which can ordinarily.be grown when Vaccine lymph is inoculated into nutrient jelly. The temperature in question ranged between 38° C. and 42° C., but the