Dr. C. Creighton, M.D. and vaccination : a review / by J. McVail.

  • McVail, John C. (John Christie), 1849-1926.
Date:
1890
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. C. Creighton, M.D. and vaccination : a review / by J. McVail. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    the usual method .... the humor .... necessarily brings on an ulcer. This must be dressed for a fortnight at least; and whilst tiie principal disorder employs tlie inoculator but two or three days, the incisions require liis attendance for several weeks. Tims a complaint is produced, both tedious and painful; . . . . It even happens that the ulcer will not heal up, but grows so deep and foul that the surgeon cannot conquer it in many months; and the patient must suffer a thousand times more from this than from the sniall-pox itself. It is well known that some- limes inoculation leaves other bad remains—such as erysipelas, tumours, and abscesses, whicli are very troublesome, and may become fatal. Here we have deep and foul, slow-healing ulcers, tumours, abscesses, and erysipelas—all as in cow-pox. It is true that in accounting for them Gatti says, You must take in the effects of the thread and of the putrid matter itself, not merely as conveying the infection, but as extraneous and offensive bodies; and to these are to be added the action of the plaister and of the air. These last causes may produce an inflammation . . . . which often becomes erysipelatous, as in any other wound covered with a greasy plaister. But to all this it might be replied, in Dr Creighton's words (p. 103), We need have no hesitation in dismi.ssing the tlieory, which can always be plausibly urged for apologetic purposes, that the erysipelas of vaccination [inoculation] is owing to foul lancets or extraneous infection introduced, and (p. 166) that the explanation [by Gatti] is, of course, sophistical. There is another very singular feature in Dr Creighton's writings to wliich I must call attention. His promulgation of the doctrine ;is to the resemblance between cow-pox and great-pox lays liim open to charges almost exactly similar to those which he launches against Jenner for his belief in the resemblance between cow-pox and small-pox. I will endeavour to illustrate this by parallel columns:— One can readily understand .Testy, the Dorset farmer, being misled by the similarity of names [cow-pox and small-pox], and by snperficial aspects of diseased processes. While Jenner's prosaic medical neighbour saw no pioint of contact between cow-pox and small-pox, and while they gave due heed to the abun- dant experience that cow-poxed milkers Lad not escaped the common epidemic of the time, Jenner persuaded himself that the one kind of pox was somehow related to the other, that there was a scientific or pathological basis for the rumoured antagonism between them. One can with difficulty understand Dr Creighton, an able pathologist, being misled by the simifarity of names, great- pox and cow-pox, and by superficial as- pects of diseased processes, as ulcers, etc. While Dr Creighton's prosaic medi- cal neighbours saw no point of contact between cow-pox and great-pox, and while they gave due heed to the abundant exjjerience that vaccinated children had not l)een, through their cow-pox, attacked by the common ven- ereal disease of the time, Dr Creighton persuaded himself that the one kind of pox was somehow related to the other, that there was a scientific or patho- D