INOCULATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1097, 23 January 1912, Page 4

INOCULATION.

(By Dr. Andrew Wilson)

A reader puts to me the inquiry, “What is inoculation ?” He wishes to know the difference between “inoculation” and “vaccination,” and remarks that an explanation of this exact meaning might constitute a fitting topic for consideration. The suggestion is one in which I concur. To begin with “inoculation” implies the conveyance into the system of some definite principle or substance. It is, in a way, synonymous with “infection” ; but, while we may become “intected” with diseaseproducing microbes through many different channels the word “inoculation” more specifically applies to the direct reception by the body of infective matter. In its most direct sense the word implies the placing of such matter directly into the blood or tissues, as distinguished from, say, infection by breathing in or swallowing pathogenic germs. A snake-bite is thus an illustration of direct inoculation, as is a rabid dog’s bite; while to administer the remedy known as “606” by placing it in the blood, or to give a hypodermic injection of morphia, would also in a general sense exemplify the term. In its special and modern signification we use the word to imply the passage into the blood of some infective material. But it is important to note that in past days the word “inoculation” had attached to it a very distinct meaning. To appreciate this latter point leads us backwards into a most interesting piece of autobiography, no less, indeed, than the letters written home by Lady Wortley-Montague, wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey. These letters date from the beginning of the eighteenth century. Among other topics the plague—otherwise smallpox—received attention at the hands of Lady Mary. Smallpox was then a veritable plague. Lady Montague give a very clear description of thes process then known as “inoculation,” or “ingrafting,” as she also terms it. A set of old women, she says, make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the mouth of September, when the great heat is abated.” People send to know, she adds, if any of their family “has a mind to have smallpox.” Consent being given, “the old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks what vein you please to have opened.” The operation consisted in injecting into the selected vein “as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit ot shell; and in this manner opens four or five veins,” Evidently the old lady practitioner did her work very thoroughly. Up to the eighth day the patients, chiefly young people, are well, but then the fever seizes them, and “they keep their beds two days, rarely three.” The “pocks” on their faces number rarely above twenty or thirty, and “ never mark ; and in eight days’ time they are as well as before their illness.” Lady Montagu remarks that the French Ambassador “says pleasantly, that they take the smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries.” Satisfied of the safety of the procedure, Lady Montagu adds, “ I intend to try it on my dear little

son.” The account given of “ inoculation ” for smallpox led to the adoption of the proceeding in England. Now, “inoculation” here implied the direct infection of the system with true smallpox matter. What was produced was a mild attack of the actual disease. The protective influence was gained, as it was, and is, in an actual attack of the disease, only it was undoubted smallpox which was thus distributed, and there were obvious risks ot infection being conveyed to others. When “ vaccination ” came into vogue, inoculation was superseded. Today “ inoculation ” of smallpox is forbidden by law. Vaccination implies the modification of the disease-poison by its transmission through the body of the cow. It thus differs from inoculation in that it protects by the influence of a modified material, which does not convey the disease in its actual form. This, of course, was Edward Jennet’s discovery, to the history of which reference may be made later on, for, as Kipling says, “ that is another story.”