VACCINATION

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1929, Page 8

VACCINATION

SILKWORMS TREATED. Silkworms are now being vaccinated against two diseases to which they are subject. Dr Domenico Oarbone and Signorina Elena Fortuna, are the experimenters. The vaccine, which is made from material prepared from the whole microflora of the diseased worms, is administered through the mouth either by means of leases immersed in the solution and then dried, or by tne addition of cutaneous treatment (spraying). “The number of experiments made is as yet small,” says “Nature” (London) .in reporting the work, but the results, although not entirely consistent, indicate that distinct diminution in the mortality due to these two diseases may be affected by the vaccination The .immunity appears to he specific.”

Vaccination in general is one of our best disease preventives. Take the case of smallpox vaccination. In 1911 California repealed its law making vaccination of school children compulsory. In 1923 it let down the bars still further. Smallpox in the State increased from 511 a year in the period 1912-16 to 2682 a year from 1917 to 1921, and to 4263 a year from 1922 to 1926, an increase of 300 per cent. Dr Frederick Eberson, of the University of California, commenting on this recently, cited the case of Soviet Russia, which to-day has less smallpox than the United' States, in spite of the fact that in 1919, when compulsory vaccination came into effect, there were 169,000 cases, ,and Germany, where compulsory vaccination was started in 1874, the number of\smallpox deaths between the - years 1901 and 1910 was’ only 380. In contrast to German y, England and Wales, with half the population of Germany, but no compulsory vaccination, suffered a death list of 4300 during the same period.