A
COMPENDIUM OF VACCINATION.
The following Tables contain a concise account of Vaccine Inoculation; but it may be useful to prefix a few remarks.
The pustule must be carefully defended from tight sleeves; and from every other kind of pressure and friction.
Matter must be taken with great caution; otherwise ulceration of the arm, and cutaneous eruptions, will often ensue.
Fluid matter is preferable to dry; but those inoculators who have not a constant succession of patients, and cannot readily procure a fresh supply of matter, should preserve it on vaccinators for future occasions. In this manner, when kept in a cool place, it may be preserved several months.
When it is intended to be sent a distant place, or to be kept long, the vaccinators should be charged several times.
Matter must not be dried before the fire.
When suffered to dry on a lancet, it should not be kept above two or three days.
When dry matter is used, it should not be moistened previous to insertion; but the longer it has been kept, the longer the point of the instrument ought to remain under the cuticle, that it may have time to dissolve.
When fluid matter is used, the lancet should be washed in cold water, and wiped dry, after every puncture.
One pustule is a security from the future infection of the small-pox; but when the patient resides at a distance, or is in danger of catching the small-pox, it is proper to inoculate in both arms.
Those who have been exposed to the infection of the small-pox, ought to be inoculated with the cow-pock; which seldom fails to supersede, or mitigate, the small-pox.
A spurious pustule is more elevated and opake than the genuine; and more rapid in its progress. It is not surrounded with a distinct, circumscribed areola; nor converted into a dark shining scab.
Spurious pustules often occur, in those who are vaccinated after having the small-pox: they may also be produced in those who have not had the small-pox, by blunt or rusty lancets, by matter taken from a spurious pustule, or from a genuine pustule at too late a period; or by that which has been kept too long, or dried before the fire.
When there is any doubt of success, the patient should be inoculated again.
The superiority of Vaccine Inoculation being now fully ascertained, those who still continue to inoculate for the small-pox, and to disseminate that dreadful contagion, ought to be looked on as the pests of society; and to be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
Printed by S. Gosnell., Little Queen Street, Holborn.
