Observations on the etiology of vaccinia and on the cultivation of the microbe of variola / by W.J. Simpson.

  • Simpson, W. J. (William John), Sir, 1855-1931.
Date:
[1912?]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Observations on the etiology of vaccinia and on the cultivation of the microbe of variola / by W.J. Simpson. 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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    3 On the eighth day four conical vesicles appeared at the seat of punctures. They were not umbilicated, but they contained clear lymph, which was transferred to two children, who eight days afterwards showed no signs of having taken, and were, therefore, vaccinated with ordinary lymph. Three days after, one child showed an eruption of twelve papules, which became vesicular on arms, legs and body, and the other child thirty papules, which also became vesicular; both had fever. The results were similar to those follow- ing inoculation with variolous lymph of a mild type, such as was familiar to Sutton in the eighteenth century. The local vaccination with ordinary lymph failed in both cases. Calf F remained well, and was vaccinated on the fourteenth day. It was then vaccinated with ordinary lymph, and was not examined until tiie fourth day of the vaccination when this was found to have failed, but the animal had on it a profuse eruption. There were crusts over the left eyebrow and under the right eyelid, also over different parts of the face, and on the throat and dewlap; also over the ears there were vesicles and pustules very similar to what is seen in cases of small-pox. There were also pustules on the rump. Plates II and III, figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9, show calf F with eruption on different parts of body. The temperature was 108.2° F. Next day it was 104° F., and there were loose motions. After this the tempera- ture dropped to normal, and the animal, with the exception of its eruption, appeared quite well. A calf inoculated with the crusts and with the serum and lymph squeezed out of the crusts, had a rise of temperature on the sixth day, an eruption on the neck on the seventh day, slimy motions, sore and ulcerated mouth and great weakness on the ninth day and died on the tenth. Later in the year, during the rains, I began another series of experiments with the cultures, but with a very curious result, possibly due to some contamin- ation that I was unable to discover. A spurious vesicle was produced on the calves, and this vesicle passed through the several stages of papule vesicle crust and scar. It had at some stages a resemblance to a vaccine vesicle, but its final appearance was flat and more like a blister. It could be transferred from calf to calf but not to children, and it did not render the calves immune to vaccination with ordinary lymph, as was the case with the other series. , It may be of interest to note here that it is difficult to maintain effective vaccination from calf to calf or from calf to child in Calcutta during the rains, and that natural small-pox in the human being seems to lose much of its infective power at this season of the year. The results of these observations bring the subject to a more advanced stage than that reached by the experiments made by me in the years 1884 and 1885, when Medical Officer of Health for Aberdeen and when, owing to the experiments of Chauveau and Klein, the trend of opinion was that it was impossible to produce vaccine by inserting the virus of human small-pox into the cow : that if any vesicle was pro- duced it was a small-pox vesicle, and that the suc- cesses of previous experimenters had been due to accidental contamination with vaccine. My experi- ments then demonstrated that it was possible to produce vaccine by the passage of human small-pox virus through the cow, and that the older experi- menters were correct in their observations. I did not publish the results at the time for I wished to supple- ment them on a larger scale. The fact, however, that such successful experiments had been made, and 1,200 children vaccinated from this source was placed before the Eoyal Commission on Vaccination by Dr. Cory, in November, 1889, at the instance of the medical department of the Local Government Board, over which Dr. (afterwards Sir) George Buchanan, K.C.B., presided,- and I further added to that information when at the request of the Com- mission I sent to it an account of my successful experiments in the same direction carried out in India in 1892, and which appeared in their sixth report in 1897. In the meantime Colonel W. G. King, CLE., had published his classical experiments done in Madras in 1891, and for which he got into much trouble owing to the view held by the medical department, that only small-pox could be produced, and that it was impossible to produce vaccine. Since then, Copeman, Klein and Hime, in England, have also proved its possibility. The observations recorded in this paper help, I think, among other things, to show that both sets of opponents were correct in their observations, though differing in the interpretation of the results, and that the explanation of the difference lay in the maturity of the vesicle produced at the site of inoculation, or in the production of secondary vesicles. Seventeen years is a long period to elapse between the making of certain observations and their publication, but I was always in hopes of having further opportunities of pursuing the subject. For instance, quite apart from natural small-pox in cattle, giving rise to a disease included under the general term of cattle plague or rinderpest, and which under certain circum- stances gives rise to vaccinia in men, the animal has yet to be found that exalts the virus and conveys it to man in the form of epidemic variola. It was because of this line of research and thought that I realized at once the significance of disease in the rat when plague first appeared in Calcutta in 1896. I think, however, it is time these observations should be made known beyond a few friends in order that others, if opportunity arises, may advance this very important subject. Unable in England to follow up this line of research, I recognize that as regards myself, so far as this aspect is concerned, the chapter is closed. But I have not entirely relinquished the study of vaccinia, and I hope in due course to deal with the problem from a different aspect, aided by the ex- perience already gained. John Bale, Soks and Danielsson, Ltd., Printers, 83-91, Gt. Titchfleld Street, W.