Preliminary report : an investigation of the results of vaccination from the calf in the various countries of Europe, in India, and America ; with proposals for the establishment of a central government establishment for continuous supply of fresh calf lymph to public vaccinators in Great Britain. Presented for the use of the conference on animal vaccination, held Dec. 4, 1879, at the rooms of the Medical Society of London / by Ernest Hart.

  • Hart, Ernest.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preliminary report : an investigation of the results of vaccination from the calf in the various countries of Europe, in India, and America ; with proposals for the establishment of a central government establishment for continuous supply of fresh calf lymph to public vaccinators in Great Britain. Presented for the use of the conference on animal vaccination, held Dec. 4, 1879, at the rooms of the Medical Society of London / by Ernest Hart. 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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    PREFATORY WORDS. The annexed report on the subject of vaccination direct from the calf has been prepared under the following circumstances :—As Chairman of the Parliamentary Bills Committee of the British Medical Association, it is my practice to consider and submit for appreciation by that Com- mittee (which is made up of elected representatives of the eight thousand members of the Association, and representatives appointed by each of its twenty-nine provincial branches) all measures introduced into Parliament affecting the Public Health, the organisation of the State Medical Services of the Army, Navy, and Poor-Law, and cognate matters. Dr. Cameron’s bill to provide official Vaccination direct from the Calf, therefore, challenges our especial attention. The subject is one which has been much discussed in various meetings of the Medical Profession in Great Britain, but hitherto decided in an adverse sense by the medical advisers of the Government. Throughout the Continent of Europe, in America, and in India, vaccination direct from the calf has made much practical progress, and it is largely carried out with the sanction of various states and municipalities ; I therefore resolved to visit some of the principal stations for animal vaccination. Plaving done so, and being of opinion that the practice is much more simple, effective, and inexpensive than has been represented, and is generally believed in this country, I have thought it right to make available for the information of the Committee and of the Profession at large, all the existing data within my reach as to the actual position of the practice of direct vaccination from the calf throughout the world. The docu- ments which I have been able to collect are unexpectedly numerous. I have condensed into the smallest possible compass the substance of the voluminous reports which I have collated ; nevertheless, I fear that this short study will prove too dry and too voluminous for many whom I could wish to read and judge it. It will be seen that I consider it advisable that the Government should institute one or more central stations of animal vaccination, which should supply public vaccinators gratuitously, with pure calf lymph, and none other. I have examined, as will be seen, all the alleged objections to this practice, and by the light of observation I do not find any of them to be substantial; moreover, the change would be inexpensive, and the supply not only always pure beyond suspicion, and effective, but ready in relatively indefinite quantities at moments of emergency. By this means, the small but troublesome faction of anti-vaccinators would be deprived of the last shadow of reason for their agnation against the beneficent gift to mankind by which Jenner placed in our hands the means of practically putting an end to the ravages of small-pox. A 2