Page 131 - My FlipBook

mav vaccinate in many different ways. In my younger days ;
we used to vaccinate from arm to arm, or save the scab
and break that up in some water and vaccinate with it.
Afterward we obtained the vaccine put up in a Httle vial
from the serum from the pustules in the cow. Afterward
we obtained the ivory points dipped in the serum and dried,
and they remain dry for a long time and yet have all their
potency. Now we are using the glass tubes. It is very nice
to use in that way. They are mixed with glycerin. They act
perhaps a little bit slower, a little less danger of abscess occur-
ring. Now, these tubes are made up from the serum from
vaccinations in cattle. We have in several places in the
United States and Canada large vaccine farms where they
are raising cattle, vaccinating them and putting up the serum
from the pustules in these little tubes that we have been
using in the last few daA'S. Each farm has some peculiarity
in the manner of putting them up, but they are generally
very effective.
Now, what happens in this disease small-pox, happens
in the other microbic diseases. If the child has whooping-
cough there is an antitoxin developing in the blood of that
child wdiich immunizes afterward against whooping-cough
the same with measles, and so on through the whole group.
Now, this is the particular point that I want you to un-
derstand this morning—that there is a material substance de-
veloped by reason of this contact of the poison that antidotes
the poison which produces the sickness; it is the factor that
brings about the self-limiting nature of the disease. Any dis-
ease that runs a self-limiting course develops during that
course an antidote to the poison of that disease. Not only the
microbic poisons are antidoted, but generally the alkaloidal
poisons from the higher plants are antidoted. From tobacco
we have a poison—nicotine—that is very violent. The boy or
the man who smokes his first cigar is apt to be sick he may be
;
very sick ; there are differences in susceptibility to this poison.
To-morrow he tries it again; he is sick again; he learns to
smoke only a little and then throws it away. The next day
he can smoke more and more, until he may become practi-
cally immune to this poison. That is because an antidote to
that poison has been developed by contact with it. And it is
the antidote developed that prevents the poisoning by mor-
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