Report to the Local Government Board on the preparation and storage of glycerinated calf vaccine lymph : with an introduction by the Medical Officer.

Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the Local Government Board on the preparation and storage of glycerinated calf vaccine lymph : with an introduction by the Medical Officer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY CHAPLIN, M.R PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD. Sir, Shortly after the issue of the Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination last autumn I received your in¬ structions that I should, together with Dr. Monekton Copemao, visit certain cities in different countries on the continent of Europe, with a view of obtaining information as to the methods adopted, by the respective authorities and others concerned, in the distribution of vaccine lymph derived from the calf, more especially in reference to the preparation, storage, and distri¬ bution of glycerinated calf lymph. The necessary visits were commenced in December of last year, but owing to the fact that in some of the countries to be visited public vaccination is practically limited to certain months of the year, commencing with the spring, it was found im¬ possible to complete the inspections until quite recently. In eliciting information as to the methods adopted in each of the countries visited, we held especially in view two points to which the Royal Commission gave prominence in their Report. The first of these—one which the Commissioners put “ in the fore¬ front ”—is the recommendation in section 437 of their Report “ that parents should not be required to submit their children “ to vaccination by means of any but calf-lymph.” The second, which is referred to in section 448, is concerned with experi¬ ments which Dr. Copeman made and announced to the Inter¬ national Congress of Hygiene which met in London in August 1891, as to the effect of the storage of vaccine lymph in gly¬ cerine. “ The conclusions at which he arrives,” say the Commissioners, “ are that the addition of glycerine, whilst it “ leaves the efficacy of the lymph undiminished, or even “ increases it, tends to destiny other organisms” ; and they add that: “ The question is one a further investigation ©f which is “ obviously desirable.” The places visited by us were Baris, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, and Geneva; and in submitting to you an account of the operations which came under our notice in each of these cities, I beg leave to make the following observations. It will be noted that in each of the countries concerned, vaccination with calf-lymph has become the habitual, if not the universal practice. In some, indeed, we were informed that although vaccination with humanised lymph is not definitely prohibited under any statute or regulation, yet resort to such lymph by any medical practitioner having official responsibility to the Government is altogether discouraged. In only one of the places visited—namely, Paris—did we find that vaccination was carried out under official sanction with crude calf-lymph, and even there the process was limited to vaccination direct from calf-to-arm, all lymph stored for distri¬ bution being glycerinated calf-lymph.