Report to the Local Government Board on the preparation and storage of glycerinated calf vaccine lymph : with an introduction by the Medical Officer.

Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the Local Government Board on the preparation and storage of glycerinated calf vaccine lymph : with an introduction by the Medical Officer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/54
    for no less than 15,000 vaccinations. We brought some of this Berlin lymph to England, and it was used for the purposes of vaccination at intervals of 9, 11, and 37 days after its collection, with the result that in 76 vaccinations performed, in each case by five insertions, its use resulted in a mean insertion-success of 92‘0 per cent. Storage of this particular sample for a much longer period did not give satisfactory results. With other preparations of glycerinated lymph, diluted to about one third of the amount of the Berlin sample, and which were used in England at intervals varying from 7 to 31 days after collection and preparation, the insertion-success reached 97, 98, and 99 per cent. ; and in the case of 111 vaccinations, all effected with two other supplies of glycerinated lymph, used at intervals of from 7 to 30 days after preparation, the success reached 100 per cent., every insertion of lymph being followed with success. In all these cases the vaccination was performed by means of five insertions. In every instance we found that the work of collecting, preparing, and storing the glycerinated lymph was carried out with the greatest care; a condition of scientific cleanliness was especially aimed at, and a laboratory, fitted with bacteriological and other scientific apparatus, always formed an essential part of the vaccine institution. The extent to which the desired end of freedom from extraneous impurity was attained depended largely on whether a first attempt to adapt an existing calf station or similar establishment to its new purposes had been maintained, or whether it had been abandoned in favour of an institution constructed especially for the purposes of that which is in the main scientific laboratory work. Several of the stations which we visited are alreadv under condemnation, because of the difficulty of ensuring that freedom from extraneous micro¬ organisms which should be aimed at during the preparation of the lymph supply; the Cologne station is one of the newest, and may well serve, in its main features, as a type of that which should be aimed at. The condition of scientific cleanliness to which I have referred exten ded to such matters as the following : (a) the construction and administration of the stabling for the calves; (b) the means for washing or bathing calves before their vaccination; (c) the construction, cleansing, &c., of the operating rooms; (d) the cleansing of the vaccinated surface of the calf with germicidal preparations and sterilised cloths before collection of the lymph ; (e) the use of clean sterilised outer garments by all officials con¬ cerned in the processes carried out; (/) the sterilisation of all instruments, &c., employed; and (g) the carrying out of the process of admixture of the lymph material or pulp with glycerine, as also its preparation and storage, under conditions of laboratory freedom from extraneous organisms. Further, we found that it was an invariable practice at the stations visited on the Continent not to issue any lymph until a report had been received from a veterinary surgeon, after slaughter of the animal, as to the freedom of the calf furnishing