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?]
Catalogue details

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.

    5/20
    OBSERVATIONS ON THE ETIOLOGY OF VACCINIA AND ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE MICEOBE OF VARIOLA. By W. J. Simpson, C.M.G., M.D., P.R.C.P. Professor of Hygiene, King's College, and Lecturer on Hygiene, London School of Tropical Medicine. In an article dealing with the ' Etiology of Vaccinia and Variola, Dr. Klein gives, in the Medical Officer's Report to the Local Government Board for 1892-93, published in 1894, an account and illustrations of the bacillus he found in the early stages of vaccine lymph taken from a calf, and of a similar bacillus in variolous lymph. He was unable to cultivate either. Studying the same subject from a different point of view, I had, since my arrival in India in 1886, been searching for cow-pox among cattle, with the object, if possible, of cultivating the vaccinia micro-organism from them. I found, however, that the cow-pox I was searching for turned out to be in India a severe affection, and I gradually came to the conclusion that many of the cases were small-pox. In fact the cattle plague in Bengal is called by the Indians gotee and bassunto, two names to denote small-pox. The Indian Cattle Plague Commission of 1871, of which Colonel Kenneth McLeod, I.M.S., was Secretary, came to the conclusion that the Indian cattle plague, which included gotee or matah, was allied to, if not the same as that which used to prevail in England. My experience leads me to the conclusion that the term gotee or matah includes a number of diseases, of which small-pox is one, just as the term rinderpest may in- clude a number of diseases difficult to distinguish from one another. There is a gotee with an eruption and one without an eruption. I am fairly certain that some of the epidemics that go under the name of cattle plague or rinderpest in Bengal are small-pox. Anyone who makes a post-mortem examination of a virulent case of small-pox in the human subject and then a post-mortem of a case of cattle plague or rinderpest, as seen in Calcutta in a buffalo or cow, cannot fail to be struck by the' similarity in tlie naked-eye appearances of the lesions which have been produced, and their seat. Dr. Duncan Stewart, of Calcutta, as early as the ''forties of last century, suspected a relationship between the two diseases. Veterinary Colonel Hallen, the President of the Indian Cattle Plague Commission of 1871, held a similar opinion. When the cattle plague prevailed in England and on the Continent in the eighteenth century, it was held by many, especially by M. Vicq D'Azyr and by Dr. Layard, who wrote on the subject in 1756, and again in 1780, that it was an eruptive fever of the variolous kind. There is also the incident of the vesicle on Mr. Handcock's hand, a veterinary in- spector at Uxbridge, in London, who accidentally inoculated himself in 1865 when engaged on the post- mortem of a bullock, which had died of cattle plague. The vesicle was seen by Mr. Rayner, Professor Spooner, Dr. Quain and Dr. Murchison, who recog- nized in it the character of the vaccine vesicle. Tt was also seen by Mr. Ceely, who stated that it corre- sponded with some of the cases of casual cow-pox in the milkers. To return, however, to Bengal. I had in mind the experiments of Macpherson at Murshedabad, who, in 1832, succeeded in obtaining vaccine by inoculating children witli the crusts obtained on the twelfth day from an animal suffering from gotee. He tested the vaccination by inoculating two of the children with small-pox virus, but without producing small-pox. There were also the experiences of Mr. Furnell and Mr. Brown in Bengal, who performed similar experi- ments with animals suffering from gotee, with the result that not vaccine, but small-pox, was produced in the children. During several years' search among gotee animals I had isolated a diplobacillus from some of them, but the opportunity did not allow of me testing them until 1894, when I came across a buffalo suffering from gotee and with the most profuse eruption on head, neck, body and teats that I have ever seen. The animal a little before its death was shown to several medical men who were asked their opinion as to the nature of the disease. Their reply was unanimous that if it had not been a buffalo they would have said the disease it was suffering from was small- pox. With the assistance of Mr. Haffkine, CLE., a diplo-bacterium similar to some of the others pre- viously obtained was isolated. Cultures consisted of rather small diplo-bacteria, which sometimes had the appearance of diplococci, and occasionally a thick diplo-bacillus. This is the type of the culture. Circumstances did not ijermit me to test the cul- tures of this new microbe until some seven to eight weeks after its isolation, but in November, 1894, I inoculated two calves with different aged sub-cultures. For convenience of reference the two calves will be called Calf A and Calf B, and they are classed in Series A. Series A.—First Set. In Calf A four out of the fourteen inoculations be- came vesicular between the fifth and sixth day. Lymph from these vesicles was transferred to another calf, and in this none out of the twenty-one developed, but a secondary vesicle appeared on the ninth day and became a very fine vesicle on the tenth day.^ The lymph from this vesicle of the tenth day was transferred to a third calf by seven punctures. Vesi- cles developed at the seat of each puncture, having on the seventh day the appearance of ordinary vac- cine vesicles of the sixth day. With this lymph a child was inoculated on the arm and a calf on the abdomen and both showed good vesicles on the sixth day. The vesicles on the calf and child were declared to be vaccine vesicles by the medical men, native and European, interested in the proceedings, among