The value of vaccines questioned by eminent medical authorities. Vaccines as treatment.

  • British Union for Abolition of Vivisection.
Date:
[1915?]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The value of vaccines questioned by eminent medical authorities. Vaccines as treatment. 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 Value of Vaccines Questioned BY EMINENT MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. Vaccines as Treatment. From an article in the Lancet, Feb. 27, 1915, by Sir WATSON CHEYNE (President of the Royal College of Surgeons). What support is there from clinical experience in favour of the employment of vaccines for treatment as apart from prophylaxis ? J ust think how many millions of vaccine injections have been made in the course of the last few years, and in how very few cases we can definitely recognise an immediate and marked improvement, as we ought to do if the treatment is to be justified. Think, also, how often we are in doubt whether such improvement as occurs in the course of the treatment is due to the vaccme or is a natural result of the actions of the body. Think again in how many cases (the vast majority, indeed) there is no apparent action at all. I have used vaccines extensively (employing the services of bacteriologists for the purpose, so that I should not feel that I had not been carrying out the treatment .properly), and I have in only two or three cases seen any result which I should not have expected without their use. I have seen lesions getting well in one part of the body and yet, while still under vaccine treatment, fresh lesions breaking out in other parts of the body, and / have also seen bad and even fatal results follow the use of vaccines.