RE-VACCINATION.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 59, 19 July 1884, Page 7

RE-VACCINATION.

In prospect of another epidemic of smallpox, it is but our duty to place on record the more recent evidence of the wonderful completeness of the immunity from small-pox conferred by the revaccination of adults. Mr Marson's rettiarkable experience is familiar to every member of the profession — that during the 35 years he had been medical officer of the small-pox hospital, he had never known a ntirse or servant to contract the malady. He says, " Ire-vaccinate them when they come there, and they never have small-pox, although they are ■exposed to the infection every day." But it may be said that this is old experience, and something newer is wanted. In the recent dreadful epidemics, has the reputation of re-vaccination survived the test of life in a small-pox hospital ? It has done so splendidly, as the following facts, from an article by Dr Collie, in " Quain's Dictionary of Medicine," will show. During the epidemic of 1871, 110 persons were engaged'in the Homerton Fever Hospital in attendance on the small-pox sick : all these, with two exceptions, were re-vaccinatod, and all but these exceptions escaped small-pox. In the epidemic of 1876 77 all re-vaccinated attendants escaped the disease, while the only one who had not been vaccinated took the disease and r"ied of it. In tue epidemic of 1881, of 99 nurses and others att n lants of the Atlas Smallpox Hospital s! Iip the only person who contracted small-pox was a housemaid who had not been re-vaccinated. It must be clearly understood that the revnccination here referred to i& what Di Collie calls successful re- vaccination. Re- vaccination that doeb not succeed is useless and worse than useless — it deludes the patient into a false sense of security. It is most important that revaccination should be performed onl\ with recent lymph, with enough of it, either direct from the arm or preserved in hermetically sealed tubes, taken from healthy children and with clean lancets. Be-vaccination so performed will result, in a large proportion of cases, in more or less vesiculation and slight malaise. When no result is produced, the operation should be repeated, v\ith still more attention to the conditions of success we have just mentioned. The troublepome peop'e who do not take easily should not be given up till they have been vaccinated with lymph direct from the ami. Mr Marson did not repeat re-vaccination ; but when this operation is performed about pubeity, or earlier, as it should be in epidemic j-easons, it ought for safety's sake to be repeated once in adult life. The facts adduced by Dr Collie are not less info resting as showing the liability of persons who have not been re-vaccinated, to contract small-pox — generally, but not always, in a mild and modified form — than as showing the security of the re- vaccinated. It is enough to place these fabta bofore tiie public and the profession. They tire the despair of .•iiili-vaccinatiou^ts, and they constitute the most brilliant illustu.tion of the beneticenee of the art of medicine. All protectives against small-pox, compared witu this, are a 8 .am. The best constitution in the best situation is moHve. I in its contest with this disease if not partially protected by vacnii.iiioii, or wholly by reYUcciiiation. — Lancet.