The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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20 The Health Bulletin August, 1927
Research Committee will give the vaccine
an absolutely fair trial, and if
it is found to be of value, they will
be. sure to lend it their endorsement.
At present the only known way to
protect infants and childi'en against
tuberculous infection is to make sure
that they do not come in contact with
tubercle bacilli. For details of the
necessary precautions to secure such
protection write the Extension Department,
Sanatorium, N. C.
FRENCH FAVOR VACCINATION AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS
The success obtained by the use of
the anti-tuberculosis vaccination developed
by Dr. Albert Calmette, of
the Pasteur Institute, has led to a
movement among French medical authorities
in favor of the universal
vaccination
of children.
Results just tabulated up to the
present year show that from 21,000
cases of innoculation with the Calmette
vaccine, which is known as
"BCG," there have occurred only 1
per cent, of deaths from tuberculosis,
while the tubercular mortality among
unvaccinated children is shown by
medical statistics to reach 26 per cent.
Professor Calmette explains that
his vaccine does not innoculate the
patient with the disease, but "suggests"
the disease and rouses antitubercular
bacilli to activity. This
has been done through use of vaccine
obtained through reducing the virulence
of the tuberculosis bacilli by
the inbreeding of weakened bacilli
until an innocuous vaccine is evolved
which is only strong enough to suggest
tuberculosis in the system.
The normal reaction to this,
thoroughly substantiated by thousands
of experiments in which no
deaths are traceable to the vaccine,
shows that resistance to tuberculosis
is developed in the system. The resistance
in most cases is found to endure
for approximately five years.
Early experiments were made with
laboratory animals, and then with
monkeys, over a period of thirteen
years before the scientists of Pasteur
Institute felt sure enough of the
harmlessness of the vaccine to test
the effect upon man. The vaccine
need not be injected, but may be administered
in food.
Of the first 170 children vaccinated
not one became tubercular, though
most of them were children of
tubercular parents.
Despite the apparent success of
this vaccine, French doctors report a
general hostility upon the part of the
public to anti-tubercular vaccination,
the same objections being advanced
as those opposing vaccination for
smallpox and typhoid. But an increasing
number of physicians is becoming
interested and the use of the
vaccine has already spread to all
countries of Europe. Neiv York
Thnes.
IN DARKEST MEXICO
The Trained Nurse and Hospital
Review of New York in its June issue
has the following item:
"Before a child can enter public
school or kindergarten in Mexico, the
Federal Government has ordered that
he must be given the Schick test for
diphtheria and the Dick test for scarlet
fever. Preventive treatment is
given in cases of positive reaction.
and both tests and treatment are free
of charge."
There are probably many people
who will be surprised to read of such
indication of progress in the land of
Mexico. From the propaganda that
has been emanating from that country
during the past few years it
would have been probably more in
color and more neai-ly what we -(/ould