Protective inoculation against cholera.

  • Haffkine, W. M. (Waldemar Mordecai), 1860-1930.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Protective inoculation against cholera. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    work of 1896-1898 {vide, e.g., Deutsche Medicinisclie WochenschHft, 1st January 1897). In describing the operations performed in Berlin by Professor Wasserniann and himself, in 1903, Dr. Strong states (I.e., September 1904, p. 18):— Some time was spent in accurately standardizing these ( * virulent' and ' avirulent') cultures, and the minimal lethal dose for guinea-pigs of 250 grams weight was carefully determined. After numerous passages of ^virulent' through animals a lethal dose of O'l of a standard (2mg.) Oese of a ttdenty-hour agar culture was reached. With ' avirulent,' on the other hand, one and one-half standard Oesen of a twenty-hour agaragar culture, when injected intraperitoneally, were required to produce death within the same time in such an animal. Throughout the course of the work this relationshi20 betiveen the organisms has been carefully preserved and continuously tested by animal inoculation. As the virulence of the cholera spirilla grown on laboratory media changes in a few days, it is necessary to make daily animal inoculation in the case of the virulent strain (vide p. 39) and always to use the same generation of the stem. With the avirulent culture considerable care was also necessary to keep its virulence fixed. L.c, October 1904, p. 15 : The ' avirulent' ivas next passed successively through the abdo- minal cavities of twelve guinea-pigs and then examined in regard to its virulence. This tvas found to have considerably increased, since noiv three-fourth Oese of the organism produced death in a guinea- pig of 250 grams' tveight ivithin twenty-four hours. (The italics have been inserted in the present quotation.) H. T. Marshall ( Studies on Cholera, Philippine Journal of Science, III, f. 2, 1908) obtained a similar confirmation of the method. The procedure was tested also in application to the typhoid bacillus and gave analogous results ; vide ^:tude exp^rimentale sur I'exaltation, I'immunization et la th^rapeutique de I'infection typhique, par MM. Chantemesse et Widal, Annales de VInstitut Pasteur, November 1892, p. 755 ; Rodet et Lagrifoul: Quelques faits relatifs k la virulence du bacille d'Eberth. Exsudats de passages et bacilles de passages, and Influence de certaines conditions du milieu sur le pouvoir infectant des cultures du bacille