Animal Vaccination

Thomas Whiteside Hime

doi:10.1136/bmj.1.1847.1279

. 1896 May 23;1(1847):1279–1289. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.1847.1279

Animal Vaccination ¹

¹

By “animal vaccination” is meant in this paper the vaccination of human beings with animal (bovine) vaccine—that is, with vaccine from genuine cow-pox, and by “animal vaccine” is meant vaccine obtained from bovines (the calf). The nomenclature of vaccinia is very defective and misleading. Unfortunately, too, matters have been made still worse of late years by the employment of the terms “vaccine” and “vaccinate” to indicate the agent and the operation of protective inoculation against other diseases than small-pox. This was done by Pasteur with the generous and laudable object of keeping Jenner's great discovery for ever before men's minds. The result is none the Jess perplexing. Jenner employed the term “vaccine” as specifically referring to the cow (Lat. vacca=a cow). Nowadays it is high science to speak of the vaccine of diphtheria, or cholera, etc., when cow-pox and cows are in no ways concerned. The expression “pustule” as applied to the eruption of vaccinia is also entirely inaccurate and misleading, but no more so than the equally common term “vesicle.” The specific Jennerian product of vaccination, from which vaccine is taken for vaccinating, is not a pustule nor does it contain pus, either in the human being or in animals. When it has ceased to be specific in character, and is undergoing some form of degeneration, it may or it may not become purulent. To call the “pock” a “pustule” suggests the untruth that pus is used for vaccinating. Neither is the Jennerian vaccine-pock a true “vesicle,” though the vaccine may be partially contained in component vesicles; the pock of sheep-pox is a true unicellular vesicle. The term “lymph,” too, is quite irrational as applied to the liquid exuded from the pock. It is not “lymph,” and does not come from the lymphatics. It is serum mixed with a proportion—greater or less under varying circumstances—of the specific products of the morbid action going on in the successfully inoculated (or spontaneous?) pock. In the existing chaos of nomenclature “vaccination” is thoughtlessly used to signify both the operation of vaccinating and the disease which results from it. I would suggest that “pock” is the most suitable word for the local sore; that “vaccinia” (=cow-pox) should be employed to indicate the disease; and that “vaccine” should be used instead of the very inappropriate term “lymph” to indicate the specific virus of the Jennerian pock.

PMCID: PMC2406610 PMID: 20756245