VACCINE FOR DOGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 627, 2 April 1929, Page 11

VACCINE FOR DOGS

PREVENTION OF DISTEMPER It is announced in the recent issue ol “The Field” that a vaccine has been discovered which, it "is claimed, will prevent distemper in dogs. It is the result of live years’ research work by Dr. Laidlaw and Mr. F. W. Dunkin at the Mill House, N.W., laboratories ol the Medical Research Council. The most convincing demonstration that dogs can be completely immunised, it is stated, is afforded by the fact that no fewer than 1,300 dogs and hounds : have been inoculated successfully. The Puckeridge, the Tiverton, and the Warwickshire packs afford striking examples of the success of the treatment. Among dogs of other breeds are Labradors, wire-haired terriers, Cairn terriers, golden spaniels, pointers, bull terriers, bulldogs, whippets, toy spaniels, Dandie Dinmonts, Skye terriers, Shetland collies, Alsatians, mastiffs, Kerry Blues, and Aberdeens. All these dogs, after treatment, proved to be completely resistant to the disease. The method of preventing distemper consists of a double inoculation. Distemper occurs, not as was once supposed, by a visible germ or micro-organism, but by an invisible one, which is recognisable only by the virus or poison which is the sign of its presence. The virus is present in all cases of distemper. The first inoculation of the dog selected for treatment is made with a vaccine which is in fact the virus of distemper made inactive by laboratory treatment. The second inoculation is made after an interval of about 10 days with a. weak or attenuated strain of the living virus. This dose of living virus is a hundred-fold times as much as would infect any dog with distemper which had not been previously vaccinated, or had not suffered from distemper already. But with a dog so vaccinated, the dose of living poison produces only slight symptoms, sometimes none at all, because it was rendered partially Immune by the first vaccination. The second vaccination makes it. completely and permanently immune. The preparations are not yet available for distribution among the general public or veterinary practitioners. Arrangements will be made for their production by responsible biological chemists on a scale such as will make them generally available.