PREVENTIVE 
INOCULATION. 
FRANK S. BILLINGS, M.D. 
Reprinted from The Times and Register, August 30, 1890. 
PHILADELPHIA : 
Medical Press Company, limited, 
1890. PREVENTIVE INOCULATION.1 
FRANK S. BILLINGS. 
PREVENTIVE inoculation is an unquestionable 
possibility in all diseases of a non-recurrent 
character. Nature has indicated this fact for hun- 
dreds of years, but man has scarcely learned to ap- 
preciate it. We start upon an already open path. 
At its very entrance we can see the guide-post " non- 
recurrent." To pass on to success requires simply 
honest and heroic workers. The spirit of a common 
humanity should rule where greed for the almighty 
dollar now reigns supreme. The nation itself must 
be educated to an appreciation of what can be done ; 
then success will come. Only heroes can do such 
work. The present reign of mediocrity and unprin- 
cipled selfishness in our laboratories must be crushed. 
Better anarchy than the existing conditions ! Braud 
rules in the place of scientific honesty. Salary grab- 
bers occupy places which should be filled by original 
investigators with the true scientific spirit. No mind 
but a free one can investigate correctly. 
The Difference Between Experimental and Prevent- 
ive Inoculation.-These two procedures must be most 
sharply differentiated. While preventive inoculation 
mast necessarily depend upon experimental for its 
perfection, we have no need to resort to it to demon- 
strate prophylaxis by this method to be a possible 
fact. Preventive inoculation does not depend upon 
experimental for its demonstration as a possibility. 
Nature has already done that, as mentioned. 
1 Read before the Section for State Medicine at the Annual 
Meeting of the American Medical Association, Nashville, 
Tenn., May 22, 1890 ; and the Chicago Medical Society, June 
2, 1890. 2 
The True Value of Experimental Inoculation.- 
What do we mean by experimental inoculation ? Let 
us thoroughly understand that first. 
By experimental inoculation we simply mean the 
transference of the disease products (or, pure cultiva- 
tions of the micro-organismal cause of a given dis- 
ease) from diseased to healthy individuals of the 
same, or other species of animal life, in order to see 
what the results may be. 
It is an attempt at transference, nothing more. 
The success of such an experiment is determined 
entirely by the nutrition offered, by the animals in- 
oculated, to the germs of the disease inoculated. 
The amount of imbecile nonsense which has crept 
into medical literature upon this subject is almost in- 
describable. Koch and his school are almost entirely 
to blame for it. It shows an utter want of true path- 
ological knowledge and philosophical acumen. It is 
entirely wanting in sequential logic. 
It has been assumed that experimental inoculation 
in small animals must of necessity determine the real 
nature of the disease of the animal from which they 
were inoculated. Such a hypothesis is absolutely 
absurd. It need not necessarily determine anything 
of the kind. 
These writers do not know the logical definition of 
the word contagious. While they frequently write 
deftly about "faculative" and "obligatory para- 
sites," their language in regard to the results of ex- 
perimental inoculation shows that they use words 
without knowing their logical application. They 
speak of the ' ' contagion of anthrax ' ' (a faculative 
parasitic disease), and the "contagion of glanders" 
(an obligatory parasitic disease), in the same breath. 
Logically speaking, the word "contagious" simply 
means the coming in contact with an infectious prin- 
ciple, utterly regardless of its origin. It may be a 3 
syphilitic person in one case, and a filth hole in the 
ground in another. Both may be equally ' ' conta- 
gious," but the inficiens in each case had a differ- 
ent origin. This, and this alone, must decide the 
nature of a disease. They must, of necessity, be 
either ex- or endogenous primarily. Practically, all 
physicians and hygienists know what they mean by 
a * ' contagious ' ' disease. They mean that a dis- 
eased individual must be, or has been, present of a 
given species of animal life as its primary source of 
origin. Historically, we know of no other primary 
genesis for these diseases. We know that no indi- 
vidual can acquire syphilis, or glanders, or scarlet, 
or mumps, unless an individual having been afflicted 
with one of these diseases has been in the immediate 
vicinity. The closeness of the contact necessarily 
varies in different diseases. Remove such diseased 
individuals, clean up or destroy their belongings, 
and the danger of contagion is removed. 
Experimental inoculation cannot strengthen the 
case in the least degree. The endogenous character 
of such diseases, that they were strictly contagious in 
the practical sense, was known centuries before a 
bacterium was ever heard of. Only bacterio-fanatics 
seem to be ignorant of this fact. Inoculation of 
small animals cannot strengthen it an iota. To ig- 
norant minds it might weaken the practical every- 
day evidence. All animals are not equally susceptible 
to a given inficiens. Even though experimentally 
inoculable, a given contagious disease often loses its 
specific, practical characteristic by inoculation in ex- 
perimental animals of a given species, but different 
from that in which it naturally occurs. For instance: 
glanders, transmitted from a diseased horse to rab- 
bits or guinea-pigs, will not extend, of itself, to unin- 
oculated rabbits or guinea-pigs. It is not contagious 
in these animals. 4 
A recent writer says that the ' ' crucial test '' of the 
contagiousness of tuberculosis was only obtained 
when the results of inoculation in rabbits and 
guinea-pigs had become known. Nonsense ! The 
' ' crucial test ' ' is the result of contact between dis- 
eased and healthy individuals of the species in which 
a disease naturally occurs, or is naturally transmitted 
to by accident. According to these absurdly illog- 
ical observers of pathological phenomena, syphilis 
should not be contagious because non-transmissable 
by inoculation to domestic animals. Why any sane 
person, looking upon himself as an investigator, es- 
pecially such an one as Koch, should speak of the 
contagion of anthrax, swine, plague, diphtheritis, or 
rabbit septicemia, passes one's comprehension. The 
latter disease has been especially mentioned, -because 
it is not a natural disease in rabbits, simply to demon- 
strate the utter absurdity of this position. 
The word ' ' contagious ' ' does not properly express 
the practical and hygienic meaning attached to the 
diseases to which that name has been given. As 
repeatedly stated, and as must be definitely under- 
stood, it simply means contact with an inficiens, and 
has no absolutely necessary connection with origin. 
Let us illustrate this with an example: A physician 
makes an autopsy on two different people on the 
same day; the one has perished from syphilis, the 
other from anthrax. In both cases he accidentally 
cuts a different finger, and in one becomes a chancre, in 
the other a malignant pustule develops. Such a thing 
is possible, but not probable. What has taken place ? 
Accidental inoculation, through contact with two 
differently-diseased individuals - contagion. The 
primary origin of these two diseases has been en- 
tirely different, however. The syphilis primarily 
originated from another individual; the anthrax 
from the ground of some locality. The one is en- 5 
dogenous, the other exogenous. This at once dem- 
onstrates the folly of any further use of the word 
' ' contagious ' ' in the differential classification of dis- 
eases, as it does not express our true meaning. 
To sum up, then, we can logically speak of dis- 
eases as extra-organismal, or exogenous; intra-or- 
ganismal, or endogenous, and sporadic-that is, of 
undemonstrable origin ; or, in other words, from the 
etiological point of view we can logically only 
classify diseases according to the primary origin of 
their cause. Or, to speak with Hueppe, as "oblig- 
atory parasites, ' ' by which he means that such etio- 
logical moments are primarily bound on the conditions 
offered by some form of animal life for their existence 
and continuous development; or, in other words, 
such diseases are "endogenous" in origin, to speak 
with Pettenkofer, or intra-organismal in origin, as I 
have termed it. 
An endogenous disease is one which, so far as we 
can historically trace its genesis, has found, and still 
finds, its locus of primary origin for each new out- 
break or extension of the disease in a diseased indi- 
vidual of some given species of animal life (and 
never in any other way), and then passes directly 
from the diseased individual to another susceptible, 
healthy one, either by direct contact or cohabitation, 
or by contact with some effluvia, secretion, or other 
material which has either come directly from, or been 
in immediate contact or relation with, such a dis- 
eased individual. 
Speaking in the old sense, such a disease would 
be "contagious." Speaking according to the non- 
sensical usage of the word at present, no one can tell 
what its true origin might have been. 
In contradistinction to obligatory parasitic diseases, 
Hueppe has given us the term " faculative parasites," 
by which he means to indicate diseases of parasitic 6 
origin, in which the point of primary development of 
the germs is invariably outside the animal organism ; 
but they have the faculty of living for a time within 
the organism of certain species of animal life, be- 
coming parasitic or disease-producing for the time, 
when such animal organisms offer the necessary 
nutrient conditions to their life. To this class Pet- 
tenkofer has given the name "exogenous," while I 
have termed them "extra-organismal," or diseases 
which find their primary origin in external or sur- 
rounding conditions. Or, in other words : 
An exogenous disease is one which invariably finds 
its locus of primary origin not in, but outside of, an 
animal organism ; that is, in the earth, or in the sur- 
roundings of animal life, where its micro-organismal 
cause develops under certain 'conditions of climate 
and soil, which offer the necessary nutrient conditions 
to the life and continuous development of its germ. 
The infected earth or locality bears the same rela- 
tion to animal life in the origin of exogenous diseases 
that the infected animal organism does to healthy 
susceptible animals in endogenous diseases; that is, 
they each form centers of primary origin regarding 
specific diseases in their respective class, but with this 
difference: the focus of primary generation, or infec- 
tion, is fixed, in exogenous diseases, while it is movable 
in endogenous. 
The locus infectionis, that is, the point of primary 
infection or origin, is contagious in either case. In 
the one, a healthy susceptible individual must come 
in direct contact-that is, be upon, or in, such an 
infected locality, or come in contact with material 
derived directly from such a locality; while in an 
endogenous disease the same occurrences must take 
place in reference to some form of animal life. Hence 
it is to be readily seen that the word ' ' contagious ' ' 
has no logical use or place in the nosology of diseases, 7 
according to the results of modern methods of investi- 
gation. 
Preventive Inoculation.-Preventive inoculation is 
an entirely different procedure. It is based upon a 
natural phenomenon, viz., that a given disease is 
non-recurrent in character. But more; that this 
non recurrent condition of the organism is produced 
equally as well in the mildest attack of a given dis- 
ease as in cases in which the diseased individual 
barely escapes with life. Diseases of this non-recur- 
rent character are small-pox, typhus abdominalis 
(vulgarly called typhoid fever), measles, mumps, 
scarlet, whooping-cough, chicken pox, yellow fever, 
and some others in the human family ; and in the do- 
mestic animals some of the so-called horse distempers, 
contagious pleuro-pneumonia in cattle; anthrax, swine- 
plague, rouget in swine; hen cholera, Southern cattle 
plague, (Texas fever), and black-leg, and probably 
the com-fodder disease, and others. 
Some authorities assert that Asiatic cholera is also 
non-recurrent in character, and I am inclined to think 
that glanders can be made so by the inoculation of farcy 
in a mild form. There are probably quite a number of 
these diseases still unknown to us in the poorly-in- 
vestigated portions of the globe. I am one of those 
who, at present, does not believe that rabies is a non- 
recurrent disease, and hence have no faith in inocula- 
tion as a preventive. That uon-recurrent diseases 
can be prevented by inoculation was first discovered 
in small-pox, and then demonstrated by Pasteur to 
be possible in anthrax, hen cholera, and rouget, and 
by Arloing and others in black-leg; by Willems in 
pleuro-pneumonia in cattle; by Freire in yellow 
fever in Brazil; by the author in swine-plague, and 
by Dr. Paquin, of Missouri, in Texas fever in this 
country. With none of these diseases but small-pox 
can we claim to have arrived at any perfected 8 
method; but still, the immense losses incurred, and 
the practical results which have followed, warrant the 
continuation of present methods until others are dis- 
covered, or these improved upon. The value of their 
discovery, and the practical demonstration that inoc- 
ulation will prevent in the diseases enumerated, can- 
not be overestimated. It shows what can be done, 
and will be a stimulus to more extended endeavors. 
It is my firm belief that before the end of the next 
century every non-recurrent disease at present known 
to us will have been brought under the control of 
preventive inoculation, but more especially those of 
child-life. 
Who can place a monetary value upon such re- 
sults ? Is not the mere possibility of such a result 
promised, as it is directly, to us by the very non-re- 
curring nature of these plagues of our babes, suffi- 
cient to warrant the establishment and maintenance 
of laboratories for such investigations by our Na- 
tional and States Governments ? Is it not the duty 
and mission of a broad and wise statesmanship to 
meet this,great want? Is not a vigorous and healthy 
condition of our people the very kernel of a prosper- 
ous political economy ? Then why are we sleeping ? 
Why is the medical profession so dead to its duty ? 
Is it that a prosperous grave-yard makes plump poc- 
ket-books ? No ! no ! It is ignorance and thought- 
lessness ; but, most of all, a lack of the true, humane, 
and noble spirit which should dignify the medical 
profession of a country. 
A perfected condition of the human race should be 
the only ideal to be sought after by the medical pro- 
fession. Exact and scientific government schools 
can alone produce this desired condition. Specula- 
tive institutions, or any such as depend either in part 
or in toto upon students' fees for support, can never 
give anything of value to the country. They may 9 
turn out a few competent physicians, but never scien- 
tifically qualified ones. 
With this introduction, let us turn to the consider- 
ation of preventive inoculation once more, especially 
to its introduction in relation to small-pox. We have 
said that inoculation was the transmission of the pro- 
ducts, or cause, of disease from a diseased to a healthy 
individual. In relation to the prevention of small- 
pox, this procedure is known as variolation. 
To repeat: variolation was, or is, the transmission 
of small-pox itself from diseased persons to healthy 
ones, by the inoculation of the products of diseas® 
themselves. This procedure was first practiced by 
the Chinese and East Indians, a long time before the 
birth of Christ; but was not inaugurated in Europe 
until many centuries later. Small pox itself is pro- 
duced. Why, then, was it resorted to ? Any one at 
all acquainted with epidemiological history of dis- 
eases befote this century, especially in the fifteenth, 
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, 
must know what terrible misery and desolation this 
plague caused. Many districts, and even cities and 
towns of considerable extent, were almost depopu- 
lated by it. 
We of to-day can scarcely form any idea of the 
ravages of small-pox in Europe in the past centuries; 
but the quotations of a few figures will at once en- 
lighten us; and when they are compared with the 
same results of to-day, the benefits of vaccination 
become at once apparent. 
Between 1866 and 1869, 140,000 people died of 
small-pox in the departments of Bombay and Cal- 
cutta ; and in all India, in 1874-5, tbe deaths from 
this cause were estimated at 500,000 ; and 200,000 in 
1875-6. Between the years 1711 and 1740, 65,000 
people are reported to have died from small-pox in 
England. In 1734, two-thirds of the population of 10 
Greenland died-7,000. The deaths from this dis- 
ease equalled the births at Turin, Italy, from 1796 to 
1797. In Prague, Germany, the deaths were 6,686 
in 1796, and 15,558 in 1799. In Prussia, 1796, 
24,646. In the province of Wurtemberg, in 1790- 
1800, 36,933. France, from 1726 to 1754, 760,000, of 
which Condamine says1 that this number of lives 
could have been largely saved had there been a gen- 
eral recourse to variolation. In Sweden, from 1749 
to 1765, 144,194 deaths from small-pox were reported. 
In London, in sixty-seven years the deaths from this 
cause were 113,851 ; and from 1837 to 1840, 36,000. 
Why was variolation resorted to ? There must 
have been some one striking phenomenon in the clini- 
cal history of the disease which attracted even the 
general attention of the common people. What was 
it ? It was the fact that the disease, in general, was 
"non-recurrent" in character. Outbreaks at that 
period of the world's history occur; ed *almost con- 
stantly, though in some years, or at intervals, to a 
far more murderous degree than at others. This con- 
dition of things soon demonstrated to the people that, 
as a rule, those who had the disease once seldom suf- 
fered a second attack. They had abundant oppor- 
tunities to test this fact. They also discovered a sec- 
ond fact, which was of far greater importance. They 
noticed that in years when the disease only appeared 
here and there among the people, and not as a gen- 
eral epidemic, that it was unusually mild in charac- 
ter ; and also, that those catching (contagion) the 
disease from others generally had the small-pox in 
the same mild manner. In other words, as in other 
things in nature, they saw that " like (generally) be- 
gat like," or that a mild, a non-malignant type of 
small-pox ill one individual generally produced the 
1 Mexnoire sur 1'inoculation de la petite-veriole, 1854. 11 
same character in another, if exposed to infection 
from the first. As has been intimated, the Chinese, 
and other Asiatic people, observed this valuable fact 
centuries before it received any recognition in Europe. 
They were then well acquainted with several facts in 
the his'ory of small-pox, which were : 
i. That when malignant in its first appearance, it 
would preserve that character among the whole popu- 
lation. 
2. That when mild it held the same course. 
3. That it was non-recurrent, as a rule. 
This last was a tremendous discovery. These so- 
called barbarians seem to have been practical enough 
to endeavor to take advantage of these phenomena. 
Knowing the difference in the results between a ma- 
lignant and mild outbreak, and that the disease did 
not generally recur again in the same individual, and 
that at no time could those that had not been diseased 
be safe from its ravages, they took advantage of the 
mild outbreaks and tried to induce the disease, at such 
times, in every susceptible member of the community. 
The first attempts at transference were those most 
natural to occur to the untutored mind-non diseased 
persons were obliged (or did it themselves) to wrap 
the clothing of diseased ones about them, or the scabs 
were rubbed on the skin, or upon scarified or wounded 
places. In India, where the history of variolation 
seems to extend into the misty and indefinite past, it 
was entirely in the hands of the Brahmin priests, and 
hence, acquired a very wide extension. They had 
certain seasons of the year in which they went among 
the people for this purpose, who were especially pre- 
pared for it, by certain known dietetic regulations. 
The priest then went from hut to hut variolating the 
people at the door. The point of attack was the out- 
side of the fore or upper arm. The skin was washed 
thoroughly and then rubbed hard with a dry cloth 12 
at the point selected, small incisions being made in 
it. The virus inoculated with was from the previous 
year and dried on cotton, which had been saturated 
from diseased individuals. They never used fresh 
material. Variolated people were subject to especial 
hygienic rules for a period of four weeks. 
It is said that the danger from this treatment was 
so small that it was rare that any one died therefrom. 
It seldom failed to give protection. In Circassia it 
was resorted to in the early life of the maidens, in 
order to preserve them from the scars of the natural 
disease which would render them unsuitable for sale 
to the lords of the harem. 
From Asia, Arabia and Northern Africa, this pro- 
cedure finally extended to Europe, by the way of 
Turkey and Greece, but found the most bitter oppo- 
sition from the physicians of the time, and the clergy, 
the chief objection raised being that it was trifling 
with the will of God to take measures to prevent 
anything which He caused; that small-pox was a 
punishment of the Lord's for the sins of humanity, 
and hence justly deserved. (See De Haen and other 
writers of the period. Haeser, " History of Medi- 
cine." Bohn, ''Handbuch de Vaccination," and 
other works upon small-pox). 
Early in the seventeenth century, however, variola- 
tion became a " boom " (if I may be allowed a mod- 
ern expression) in England, which was instigated by 
a courageous woman, Lady Montague, the wife of 
the British Ambassador at Constantinople, where she 
had seen the procedure and learned of its real benefits. 
On her return to London, in 1717, she had her six- 
year-old son variolated, and four years later, her only 
daughter. This venturesome act set all fashionable 
London in a whirl of excitement, and by order of the 
king, six persons that had been condemned to die, 
were pardoned on condition that they would subject 13 
themselves to inoculation, and then be exposed to 
small-pox. This was done, with the most positive 
and satisfactory results. Soon afterwards, the chil- 
dren of George I were inoculated, and then the treat- 
ment became more or less fashionable. 
It is only justice to the fair sex to mention that, to 
a woman also, the Marchioness Buffalini, is due the 
generalization of variolation in Italy. 
Variolation had two historical periods. The one, 
beginning, as has been shown, in the earliest days of 
historical record, and extending to the year 1760. 
This may be called the Crude Empirical period. 
The second, which may be called the period of 
Exact Scientific Observation, began and continued to 
the demonstration of vaccination by Jenner, May 14, 
1796. 
If vaccination had its Jenner, so had variolation its 
Gatti, to whom the world is equally indebted, for it 
was almost entirely due to the acute observational 
powers and logical conclusions of this great Italian 
physician, that variolation itself became an almost 
safe and equally valuable prophylactic measure to 
vaccination. Though there seems to have been no 
historical connection between the work of Gatti and 
Jenner, still the one did prepare the way for the other, 
for Gatti demonstrated most conclusively the almost 
safe prophylactic power of variolation (to the indi- 
vidual inoculated), and hence, his work gave a sub- 
stantial and practical fouhdation to vaccination. 
Variolation was the first great and successful ex- 
periment in the history of pathology, as well as the 
very foundation of preventive inoculation. It was 
the first practical demonstration of the fact that non- 
recurrent diseases could be actually prevented by ar- 
tificial inoculation; that the art of man could 
successfully reproduce the work of nature; that, as 
in nature, a mild attack of non-recurrent disease oc- 14 
curred, so could man, by the transmission of the dis- 
ease-product, from such a person to a healthy indi- 
vidual, also produce the same mild disease ; and, 
hence, induce in the inoculated individual that same 
immune condition which nature produced, under 
similar circumstances. 
The name of the real European founder of such a 
beneficient procedure should not have been allowed 
to have been so profoundly buried in the archives of 
medical history. How many American physicians 
ever heard of the name of Gatti, and yet it should be 
kept as fresh in memory and crowned as plentifully 
with laurels of gratitude, as that of the ever immortal 
Jenner? 
Regarding Gatti's relation to variolation, I will 
take the liberty of quoting directly from Bohn, who 
says : " No one penetrated more profoundly into the 
essentials of variolation than Gatti, and no other suc- 
ceeded as well as he. Gatti is a wonderful phenom- 
enon in the history of medicine in the past century. 
Nearly every page of his little book on variolation 
astonishes one by its richness in ideas and its advance 
over those ruling in medicine at the time. He was a 
thoroughly unprej udiced and positive observer, sharp 
and logical in conclusions, with a clever understand- 
ing of the nature of pathological experimentation, 
and knew how to give the correct answer to questions 
coming before him. One can have but a very super- 
ficial idea of variolation in the previous century who 
has not studied Gatti's work, which is characterized 
by its clear method, modesty and great humanity." 
Gatti's instructions as to the treatment of persons 
to be inoculated, carry us back to our youthful days, 
when we had to be prepared for vaccination with 
cooling salts and other restrictive dietetic measures. 
He says : ' 'All physicians have said that the persons 
to be inoculated must be, first, prepared; second, 15 
such inoculation-traumata must be made as to allow 
for a free outflow of the inoculated material; third, 
as soon as the eruption appears, the patient must be 
treated with all the care and assistance possible to the 
physician. On the contrary, I say ; patients need no 
preparation ; the physician should never provide for 
the outflow of the inoculated material by such 
wounds ; and the inoculated person should be left to 
nature." " To prepare an individual for inoculation 
is the same as endeavoring to give him a certain pre- 
disposition which one considers necessary in order 
that %he inoculated disease shall do him the least 
possible harm. Is there such a disposition, or can 
such be produced ? We do not know it and hence 
cannot produce it. Health itself is the best condi- 
tion, and this alone has one to consider in variolation. 
An unhealthy person must be first made well before 
he can be inoculated, but those who are healthy are 
already prepared for it. Every special preparation 
on the part of the physician is, however, dangerous. 
Only those things must be avoided which are liable 
to interfere with the health. All conceptions as to 
the preparation of the individual, all endeavors to 
purify or refresh the blood, or to prevent the inclina- 
tion of the blood to inflammation, no soul in the world 
understands, and all endeavors in these directions can 
only lead to the injury of the individual." 
Of inoculation he says : ' ' The material with which 
we will inoculate must be introduced into the vascu- 
lar layer of the dermis. The variola virus is so in- 
tensive that the most infinitesimal amount is as 
serviceable as a great mass. It is sufficient, therefore, 
to simply scratch the epidermis with a needle mois- 
tened with the virus, or push it gently for a short dis- 
tance under the same. This way was first introduced 
by the inoculators, mostly women, in Greece and 
Italy, and gave most satisfactory results. Only the 16 
physicians have sought to replace this simple and 
efficacious method by more artificial ones and compli- 
cated apparatus." 
The barbarism of the physicians of the time can- 
not be overestimated. Extensive incisions were made 
in the flesh and the cavity filled with thread saturated 
in the secretion of diseased persons, or even pieces of 
their filthy clothing placed therein and held in place 
by bandages. In other cases, a whole skein of thread 
would be soaked in such secretions and drawn through 
the flesh, as a seton. The terrible results #nd un- 
fortunate complication of such methods can be well 
appreciated at present, and the value of Gatti to the 
world better understood now than ever. His motto 
was, ' ' Inoculate cleanly and delicately, and all after 
treatment is unnecessary. " It is a matter of question 
if that advice is not as applicable to-day as when he 
wrote, even with our improved methods of obtaining 
virus. I have seen physicians vaccinating the poorer 
class of school children, use the same lancet to scar- 
rify the arm on one after the other, with no attention 
given to washing the arm, that in many cases were 
dirty enough. To my mind such a procedure is crim- 
inal carelessness, and does much to bring vaccination 
into evil repute and furnish just and apparently rea- 
sonable objections to its opponents. It suffices to say 
that Gatti's success as a variolator was phenomenal, 
and that his reputation extended all over Europe. 
So great did his skill in diagnosis become that he 
could almost invariably select the correct type of the 
disease from which to produce the same mild form in 
the persons inoculated. Very few pustules followed 
his treatment, and only slight constitutional disturb- 
ances in most cases. In fact it is due to Gatti alone 
that variolation became a reasonably safe procedure 
between the year 1760 and the introduction of vac- 
cination by Jenner. 17 
Objections to Variolation.-Variolation was not only 
resorted to as a strictly prophylactic measure, but 
also that the march of the disease might be hastened, 
and every one in a community, not previously dis- 
eased, might have it at the same time. Variolated 
persons were, however, as dangerous to healthy ones 
as those acquiring the disease in the natural manner. 
They had the small-pox, and hence could be the means 
of extending it. Therefore, while most extensively 
practiced, and in many cases made obligatory bylaw, 
on the outbreak of small-pox in a locality, still such 
places were treated as pest-centers, and all communi- 
cation between them and the surrounding world was 
shut off until the disease was declared at an end, and 
the locality cleansed and disinfected, as best they 
knew how. 
The cleverness of these earty variolators cannot be 
overestimated. They insisted that persons to be in- 
oculated be kept by themselves, or from general in- 
tercourse with the people for twelve to fourteen days 
previous to the operation, in order to avoid, as far as 
possible, the danger of natural infection. They dis- 
covered that early childhood was the best time to in- 
oculate, and also that the virus mitigated somewhat 
in virulence when transmitted from individual to in- 
dividual. They also paid strict attention to using 
the clear lymph before the eruption became pustu- 
louSj and even collected it in fine glass tubes for con- 
servation. The crusts were also pulverized and so 
preserved. They found that certain persons were 
immune towards variolation, about five in one hun- 
dred, which, singularly corresponded with the per 
centage of immunity noticed in natural outbreaks of 
small-pox. It is easily to be seen that, at the best, 
variolation was a somewhat dangerous procedure ; 
not only could it extend the disease, but fatality some- 
times followed it, per centage being about one to one 18 
hundred. Nevertheless, it was a vast advance in 
prophylaxis, as can readily be seen by comparison 
with the death rate from the natural disease. Then 
again, it was found very difficult to exert a proper 
control over all the inoculated persons, as they were 
frequently scattered through the community, thus 
making centers of danger wherever they might be. 
Notwithstanding all this, there is no doubt but what 
it proved a great blessing to humanity, and was the 
means of saving thousands of lives and much 
misery. 
While variolation was forbidden on the Continent 
of Europe, soon after the discovery of vaccination, it 
was continued in England until the year 1840, and 
practiced fully as much as vaccination, when it was 
also forbidden. It is still practiced, however, among 
many of the people of Asia and Africa. 
Jennevism.-The word "vaccination" is derived 
from the Eatin wTord " vaccina," of, or from, a cow, 
and expresses the transference of the disease known 
as the cow pox, "vaccina," from cows to man. There 
has been much discussion in the past as to the true 
nature and origin of cow-pox, without any uniform- 
ity of opinion having been arrived at. To my mind 
it seems as if the observers were almost entirely with- 
out ordinary powers of reflection and the ability to 
draw sequential conclusions. Variola, or small-pox, 
has been given different names, according to the 
species of animals affected, as V. bovina, equina, 
ovina, and humana. The fact that the inoculation 
of an animal of a given species, from one of another 
species, afflicted with the variola common to it, gen- 
erally protect the first from either natural infection, 
or the inoculation of the disease common to its 
species seem never to have been properly appreciated. 
To my mind it indicates a common origin, and that 
there is but one variola. 19 
The two malignant forms are those seen in man 
and sheep, while in cattle and horses the disease has 
a benign character. Sheep have been protected 
against variola by vaccination from cattle, and cattle 
and human beings by ovination from sheep. In fact, 
ovination of human beings was once looked upon as 
fully equivalent, in preventive value, to vaccina- 
tion. 
As has been said, these facts of general prophylac- 
tic relations between the various variolas, surely indi- 
cate but one original form. Whether that point can 
ever be distinctly decided may be doubtful, but there 
is no doubt whatever but what we can at once deny 
all idiopathic attributes to variola in cattle and horses, 
and emphatically assert that as diseases sui generis 
they should have no recognition. In fact, in both 
cattle and horses, variola fails its one essential 
characteristic. It is not contagious. Transmission 
by means of the milkers does not constitute con- 
tagion ! 
The transference, inoculation, of either human or 
ovine variola to cattle through a continued series of 
these animals, soon mitigates the virulence, so that 
when again inoculated upon the original species, the 
contagious factor has been lost. But this is another 
most valuable pointer in the direction of the original 
variola. In the days of variolation the most cele- 
brated observers all agreed that the virus of small- 
pox itself became mitigated on being transferred from 
man to man through a large number of generations, 
or individuals. No such phenomenon as this has 
ever been observed in sheep-pox. It does not lose in 
virulence in being passed from sheep to sheep. On 
the contrary, sheep-pox becomes mitigated by trans- 
ference in all the animals it has been attempted on, 
man, cattle, rabbits, goats, and horses, but the con- 
trary experiments have never been essayed. Vac- 20 
cina has never been carried through sheep for a long 
series of generations, nor has small-pox, nor the 
eruption in horses. All this demonstrates one fact, 
that if every other kind of variola loses in virulence, 
even by transmission in its own species, (using the 
accepted idea of specific variola) except that of sheep, 
then the ovine organism provides the most suitable 
nutrition for the preservation of virulence alone- 
contagiosity, the human next, while in cattle and 
equines it is soon lost altogether. 
As a matter of experiment, and great pathological 
interest, it is important to endeavor to build up vac- 
cina to contagiosity again in sheep, if it can be done. 
It is singular that observers should have looked 
upon the bovine and equine complications as idio- 
pathic, when in the former it is limited almost 
entirely to cows, and in both is not a natural con- 
tagious disease, only extending by accidental trans- 
mission. 
It is a matter of absolute certainty that vaccina 
either owes its origin to the human or ovine disease, 
most probably the former ; and that it was transmit- 
ted to cows in past ages in some way by milkers, who 
also took care of their friends diseased with small- 
pox, and then the eruption was transmitted in the same 
way, by the milkers, from cow to cow in a herd, and 
in this way the disease acquired.a constant degree of 
mitigation-in fact, absolutely lost its virulence, or 
contagiousness, but still retained the prophylactic 
principle. Right here let me make a statement which 
seems to have escaped notice, or expression, at least, 
and which is of the utmost importance in the study 
of preventive inoculation : What does this peculiar 
deportment of vaccina teach ? 
The very fact that the virulence, contagiousness, of 
small-pox having been lost in the change from vari- 
ola to vaccina, shows us that the germs of non-recur- 21 
rent diseases have the ability to produce two different 
chemical materials-one pathogenic, the other pro- 
phylactic, and that tests of virulence have no value 
or control in the question of prevention. 
Later on we will return to this question in 
detail. 
It seems never to have been properly appreciated, 
that there is not on record one single eruption of 
variola in cattle or horses of a general or epizootic 
character. As a herd disease, under natural or free 
conditions, we have no record of it. "This again 
tends to support the hypothesis that the disease 
in these two species found and finds its origin in 
the small-pox of man, rather than in the variola of 
sheep. 
Again, as strong proof as can be brought to bear 
in favor of both these suppositions, and of vaccina- 
tion itself, is given by the fact that, with the generali- 
zation, or compulsion of vaccination, not only has 
small-pox been brought under most wonderful con- 
trol, but cow-pox has been almost entirely lost sight 
of. While there have been cases of small-pox every 
now and again, and sometimes quite a number in a 
locality, no one ever hears of a case of cow-pox, and 
seldom of anything causing a suspicion of the 
same. 
Bohn says, that while vaccination had its Jenner, 
it was never fortunate enough to have had its Gatti, 
as did variolation. When I read that passage I could 
not but think that the worthy German had spoken in 
ignorance, and that vaccination had indeed had one 
to take part in its development; one the equal of the 
great Italian in every respect; one whom we should 
all delight to honor and to whom this country owes 
a monument of gratitude, if humanity does to any 
man, in its development on American soil. I allude 
to the late Dr. Henry A. Martin, of Boston, the in- 22 
troducer of animal vaccination into this country, a 
man with more sterling manhood, a more honest 
brain, and the most comprehensive scholar it has 
been my fortune to meet among the physicians of this 
country. In fact, I will go farther, and say, that 
from the stand-point of a fearless manhood and a de- 
voted and true physician, Henry A. Martin was the 
only whole man I have yet met in the American 
medical profession. He was no trimmer; no poli- 
tician ; in fact, he was without policy, as every man 
should be where truth is concerned. Most physicians 
in this country are trimmers. They ' ' trim ' ' their 
professional sails to suit the theological or political 
breeze, or social conditions. Men are so scarce ! Dr. 
Martin spent a great deal of money trying to find a 
genuine case of genuine cow-pox in this country, 
and during his many years of earnest study found 
but just one. I visited some cases of eruptions 
in the teats of cows with him, and have been 
called to many others since, but in none of them 
has the trouble had any close resemblance to vaccina. 
It is the general opinion that Jenner discovered 
vaccination, and it is for that that he has been hon- 
ored and credited. Jenner's discovery was the hu- 
manization of vaccina; animal vaccination, true 
vaccination, is of much later origin, and owes more 
to Martin for its generalization than to any one else, 
but it is not the exclusive right of any one man. 
Jenner's method was to take vaccina from accidentally 
inoculated human beings, and then to pass it indefi- 
nitely from person to person. Probably the very 
crusts, or scabs, used on us in our youth, were direct 
derivatives of those first originated by Jenner. 
That cows had an eruption on their teats which 
could be conveyed to human beings, and which did 
prevent small-pox in such individuals, was known 
long before Jenner's time, seems to be a matter beyond 23 
all question. Even that vaccination itself was prac- 
ticed in England by one Benjamin Jesty, on his own 
wife and child, in 1774, twenty-two years before Jenner 
inoculated, is equally true. That vaccina in some 
way was transmitted to dairy people, and prevented 
small-pox, was also known to the common people in 
Germany and other parts of Europe, but no practical 
use was made of the knowledge. It remained for 
Jenner to do this. Jenner supplied the exact and 
trustworthy foundation to a matter of popular belief 
among a certain class of people, but of which the 
majority had no knowledge. Jenner's work was 
thoroughly original. There is not a particle of evi- 
dence going to show that he knew anything about 
the vaccination of human beings by a few others be- 
fore he attempted it. Not one of those men gave 
any exact study to the subject, while it is said that 
Jenner studied, and observed, and weighed all the 
facts for thirty years, before he attempted to prove 
his observations and fortify his conclusions by direct 
experiment on man. This was done on a boy named 
Phipps, the 14th of May, 1796. But this boy was 
not vaccinated from a cow, but from one Sara Nilmes, 
who had been accidently inoculated from a cow, be- 
ing a dairy-maid. The boy resisted all attempts to 
transfer small-pox to him by variolation. 
It is doubtful if Jenner ever resorted to vaccina 
itself, that is, to a diseased cow, for his original ma- 
terial, but invariably took his stock from human be- 
ings. This should be called Jennerism, or Jenneri- 
zation. 
The one striking peculiarity of this and vaccina- 
tion, in contradistinction to variolation, is, that the 
inoculated individual is not contagious to its own 
species. This is a very striking example of the true 
meaning of the word "contagion," which, as has 
been discussed elsewhere, seems to be entirely beyond 24 
the comprehension of the medical profession and in- 
vestigators, with but very few7 exceptions. 
Sycophantic worshippers of Robert Koch, and 
even the Master himself, are respectfully referred to 
this example, and asked to ponder a moment that 
they may learn that contagion and iuoculability have 
no necessary relation, that contagion really means, 
that, the point or locus of the primary origin of the 
inficiens is a diseased individual. 
As has been stated, the very strongest examples of 
the value of vaccination are not only the very few out- 
breaks of small-pox which now occur, but also the 
almost total disappearance of cow-pox among the 
cattle of those people where any exact control of the 
question can be looked for. Statistics, as to the value 
of inoculation, can have but little additional impor- 
tance, still, a few are appended. 
Table Showing the Effects of Vaccination.1 
Period of observation. 
Place of observation. 
Average annual death- 
rate from variola to the 
million population. 
Before 
vac'inat'on 
Ai ter 
vac'inat'on 
Before vac- 
cination. 
After vacci* 
nation. 
1777-1806 
ll I 
1807-1850 
u <c 
Lower Austria, 
Upper " and Saiz- 
2,484 
340 
burg. 
1,421 
501 
«l ll 
<C ll 
Steyermark. 
1,052 
518 
446 
ll ll 
Uh ria. 
244 
it ll 
1838-1850 
Triest. 
14,046 
182 
ll ll 
1807- " 
I . ll 
Trvat. 
911 
170 
ll ll 
Bohemia. 
2,174 
215 
61 ll 
ll ll 
Austria-Silesia. 
5,812 
198 
It ll 
ll ll 
Galicia. 
1.194 
676 
t . ei 
ll ll 
Bukovina. 
3,527 
516 
1810- " 
Province of East Prussia 
3,321 
556 
1776-1780 
1816- " 
Poland. 
1,911 
743 
ll 'I 
1810- " 
Brandenberg. 
2,181 
181 
1816- " 
Westphalia. 
2,643 
114 
ll 11 
Rhein-Province. 
908 
90 
1781-1805 
1810- " 
Berlin. 
3,442 
176 
1780 
ll ll 
Pommerania. 
1.774 
130 
1774-1801 
Sweden. 
2,050 
3.128 
158 
1751-1800 
1801- " 
Copenhagen. 
286 
1 Hirsch, Handbuch der Geographischen Pathologic. 25 
The Utility of Vaccination.- "The deaths from 
small-pox in Germany, where there is compulsory 
vaccination, during the years 1887-1888, were 1.8 
and 0.8 per million, respectively ; while in Austria, 
where compulsion does not exist, the deaths were 
583.7 and 540.4."-Medical Record, April 12, 1890. 
Vaccination can be very properly termed the use 
of a natural method of inoculation, even though 
the virus is now kept up by the artificial transmission 
of vaccina from calf to calf. It is not the discovery 
of man. So far as reliable information is at hand, 
there is no record of the discovery and actual demon- 
stration of the true germ of variola, though the ' ' cult- 
ure of an artificial vaccine virus, by a Russian 
physician, which is as effective as the genuine ' ' vac- 
cina, was reported in the issue of January 18, of the 
Journal of the American Medical Association. This as- 
sertion must be taken cum grano salts, as no mention 
of such a discovery seems to have been made in any 
of the special journals of bacteriological research. 
So far as my memory serves me, nothing but cocci 
have thus far been discovered in the eruptions of va- 
riola or vaccina. I think, when discovered, that the 
germ of variola will be found to be a very delicate 
anaerobic bacillus, and spore-bearing at that. Other- 
wise we cannot account for the long time which 
clothing, or other material, polluted lay small-pox 
patiems, retains its virulence. No non-spore-bearing 
organism that we now know of retains its virulence for 
such a length of time under such adverse nutritive 
conditions. I am also of the opinion that most of the 
endogenous germs will be found to be anaerobic. 
A Few Words as to the Objections to Vaccination.- 
The opponents of vaccination base their opposition 
upon the dangers of the transmission of other diseases 
with which the individual may be afflicted at the 
time, and from whence the virus has been derived. 26 
These objections are more applicable to the trans- 
missions from human beings to human beings than in 
regard to the use of true vaccina directly. To my 
mind, however, they will scarcely hold water when 
we come to consider them critically. Take, for in- 
stance, syphilis. If, as is the case, it is at present 
impossible to positively isolate the germ of that dis- 
ease, or even to perform auto-inoculation save from a 
positive syphilitic lesion; if we cannot in any way 
discover that germ at present-how can it be possible 
to transmit syphilis from an arm or locus in which 
there is no syphilitic lesion ? It seems to me almost 
impossible. The same is true of tuberculosis. 
The unpleasant complications following vaccina- 
tion, when scabs were used, or from person to person 
directly, were due more to some organism which had 
gained access to the scab from outside, or to "the care- 
lessness of the inoculator regarding the cleanliness 
of his instrument, than to anything else. 
The criminally careless manner in which vaccina- 
tion is done even to day by too many inoculators, has 
already been noticed, and is absolutely unpardonable 
in these days of exact antisepsis and in general scru- 
pulously clean surgery. In such a simple matter as 
this apparently is, many physicians appear to neglect 
precautions they deem absolutely necessary in their 
operations. And yet we even now frequently see 
erysipelatous or purulent complications follow. If the 
virus is properly collected, these things should never 
occur. 
More precautions than are now used should be 
taken in the collection of the virus from calves. Why 
should all the points and instruments used not be 
completely sterilized ? That they are not, goes be- 
yond question. 
The generally favorable results following the use 
of vaccine points by ordinarily careful physicians 27 
shows that the danger of unpleasant complications 
has been altogether overestimated and magnified by 
those opposing this valuable prophylaxis. Still, as 
such does exist, it seems as if some control over these 
matters should be exercised by law. 
The danger of using diseased heifers, especially 
tuberculotic, need not exist, as I know from a long 
personal acquaintance with the senior and junior Dr. 
Martin, where every care is used in collecting the 
stock. The heifers should be collected some time in 
advance, and their temperature taken twice a day, 
and a general observation of their condition prac- 
ticed. Any animal showing the least departure from 
normality in any direction, should be peremptorily 
rejected. 
We will now for a moment give our attention to 
Pasteurism.-The world owes an unpayable debt 
to Louis Pasteur, for to him is due, more than to any 
one else, the reopening of the field of experimental 
preventive inoculation, and in directions never before 
thought possible of offering any practical advantages. 
But even he has not touched upon the most important 
work, which is the prevention of the non-recurrent 
diseases of child-life, most especially scarlet fever, 
which is to-day the greatest scourge that threatens 
humanity in civilized countries. Pasteur is an ex- 
plorer in an almost unknown sea of investigation. 
The "gates" are still but "ajar." They are not 
yet open. Many others are trying to enter. Some 
few can glance over the threshold, but the haven of 
success is yet a long way off. 
While I do not accept the results of Pasteur's anti- 
rabies inoculation, I most cheerfully credit him with 
his earnest endeavors and the instructive value of his 
success in anthrax, hen-cholera and rouget in the 
hog. It may be well for me to state why I do not 
believe in Pasteur's method of preventing rabies. 28 
i. There is not a particle of evidence to be found 
in the long historical record of this disease that it is 
non-recurrent in character. Not a single case of 
natural recovery in man or beast has ever been re- 
ported where the history of its origin was undoubted 
and the phenomena presented unquestionable. Hence, 
we have no natural foundation to warrant the hypo- 
thetical possibility of preventive inoculation. 
2. Pasteur's statistics are not honest. Not one of 
those Newark children was ever bitten by a mad dog. 
Two were left at home, and nine or ten dogs known 
to have been bitten by the suspected dog were kept 
confined over three months. Nothing ever happened 
to them. While the dog was "mad" enough, it 
was not "rabid." It did not seek to bite any one 
or thing, but did bite those in its way while running. 
It was a case of simple frenzy from an unknown 
cause. Dogs are often attacked thus, without rabies 
having anything to do with it. Pasteur still keeps 
those children in his statistics, though he has been 
fully informed as to the true nature of the case. 
3. Pasteurism in connection with rabies has be- 
come a regular mania in certain ' parts of Europe, 
especially France, and rabies or hydrophobia bears a 
direct relation thereto. This is easily to be seen by 
glancing at the statistics of rabies in Prussia, for a 
series of years ; viz. :- 
1876-7, o; 1877-8, 6; 1878-9, 2; 1879-80, 8; 
1880-1, 10; 1881-2, 6; 1882-3, 4 5 1883-4, 1 J 
1884-5, o; 1885-6, 2 ; 1886-7, 1. 
All suspected or rabid dogs in Berlin are brought 
to the Veterinary School. This includes every dog 
complained of as having bitten a human being. Of 
this number rabies has actually resulted : 
1878-9, in 5; 1879-80, 1; 1880-1, 11 ; 1881-2, 3; 
1882-3, 1 > and none since then up to June 23, 1889, 
when I received my report. In the whole German 29 
Empire there were but five cases of hydrophobia re- 
ported in man, in 1886 ; and but four in 1887. 
From 1886 to 1888, there were forty cases of hydro- 
phobia reported in Prussia ; and in 1886 and '87, only 
nine in all in Germany. 
Now let us look at the statistics given in Pasteur's 
Annals. 
No. persons 
treated. 
Babies said to have 
been demonstrated 
surely. 
Diagnosed by 
veterinarians. 
Suspected. 
Total. 
Dec., 1888. 
45 
77 
20 
142 
Jan., 1889. 
3-2 
88 
22 
142 
Feb., " 
52 
90 
18 
160 
March, " 
42 
95 
32 
169 
April, " 
30 
122 
29 
181 
May, " 
28 
149 
36 
213 
June, " 
21 
115 
30 
169 
July, " 
19 
111 
38 
173 
Aug., " 
15 
97 
33 
145 
Sept., " 
15 
80 
16 
111 
Oct., 
19 
88 
16 
123 
Nov., " 
20 
99 
16 
135 
- ■ - - 
■ 
- III ■ 
■ • 
341 
1211 
307 
1853 
The majority of these cases came from France and 
the French possessions in Algeria. Does any sane 
person think that there is this vast difference in the 
prevalence of rabies in human beings between France 
and Germany ? If so, I am not one of them. If so, 
no more striking example of the inefficiency of the 
French Government in comparison to that of Germany 
in its veterinary police service and guardianship of 
the public health, can be found. 
For three years in Nebraska I vainly tried to obtain 
possession of an actually rabid dog, and while a vast 
number of dogs were reported to have been bitten by 
such, not one would go rabid for me after it had been 
so bitten. I do not deny the disease. I simply deny 30 
its prevalence to any such degree as Pasteur's statis- 
tics seem to show. I simply do not believe them. 
To show how unreflectingly even educated writers 
will quote such statistics, the following is taken from 
the Times and Register, of Philadelphia, April 
12, 1889: "Pasteurism in Cuba.-At the Bacterio- 
logical Laboratory, in Cuba, three hundred and six 
persons have been treated by the ' double intensive ' 
plan. Of these, only two died, after going through 
the full course ; a mortality of 1.63 per cent. All 
these cases were bitten by dogs proved experimentally 
and clinically to be rabid, or at any rate 'suspect.' 
That the operations were conducted with due con- 
servatism is indicated by the fact that only three 
hundred and six were inoculated out of seven hundred 
applicants. The opposition to Pasteur, if it still ex- 
ists, has dwindled down to an infinitesimal point?' 
Even in these cases, not one case was known be- 
yond question to have been bitten by an actually 
rabid dog, for it is admitted that " at any rate, they 
were ' suspects ' ' ' only. Arid yet the editor says : 
" The opposition to Pasteur, if it still exists, has 
dwindled down to an infinitesimal point." "Three 
hundred and six " persons, scared half to death on 
suspicion! They were "suspects" only. We can 
"suspect" most anything to result from treatment 
based on such a "suspect" foundation. The founda- 
tion of " Pasteur's Institutes" should be treated in a 
most " suspect " manner. They should be treated as 
institutions of the utmost danger to the public. Hy- 
drophobia, or Pasteurmania, flourishes in direct pro- 
portion to their establishment. 
Since my return to this country, from that sensa- 
tional visit to Pasteur with the Newark boys, a very 
large number of such " suspects " have come to me, 
or have been brought to me by physicians, to obtain 
my opinion as to the desirability of ' ' going to see 31 
Pasteur." Fifty-two persons is the number I have 
on record, but there were a few more, notably three, 
since I have been in Chicago. 
' ' Mad dogs ' ' were very ' ' suspect, ' ' according to 
the story, in each case. I talked to them calmly, rid- 
iculed their fears, and they all left me apparently 
comforted. Not one went to Pasteur, and I think it 
can be safely asserted that no hydrophobia resulted, 
or I should have heard of it and the papers would 
have been full of it long ere this. There is a vast 
difference between a ' ' mad dog ' ' and a genuine ' ' ra- 
bid" one. The former are frequent enough, the lat- 
ter are as scarce as honest original investigators in the 
United States. 
There is still another very strong argument against 
Pasteur's anti-rabidism. The germ of rabies has not 
been discovered. This fact in itself is not very strong 
negatively; but when we take into consideration that 
rabies is a strictly wound infectious disease in optima 
forma; or, perhaps better, toxic rather than septic; 
that, as in tetanus and many forms of surgical tox- 
aemia, the toxic producers remain at the locus trau- 
matica, and that the poisoning of the organism takes 
place from there, and goes on for some time, and that 
constantly during that period until a certain cumula- 
tion of such material in the nervous centers has taken 
place-it seems to me that the Pasteur-metliod is 
self-evidently absurd. The toxic rabies' element 
must be in solution (the nervous tissues being only 
saturated with it) ; and hence, though very abundant 
perhaps, still, not in such an excessively concentrated 
amount, in the small piece of cord used that it can 
produce the effect claimed. There is altogether too 
much dilution. If correct in the hypothesis that the 
toxic producer remains local, there can be no increase 
in the amount of poison introduced, save as made 
each day. The fact that the germ remains local in- 32 
dicates that in the trauma is the place to look for it, 
as in tetanus. 
Again, where can I find record of one of Pasteur's 
artificially rabid dogs ever having conveyed the dis- 
ease to healthy ones, as is the case in the actual 
disease, by biting? 
These objections may seem too very finely drawn 
to enthusiastic worshippers of Pasteur, but it may yet 
be found that they have more foundation than ap- 
pears on their face. 
These objections to Pasteur on one point do not 
detract, however, from the importance of his work to 
the world in others, in the least. What may one 
really call Pasteurism ? The answer to this question 
brings us at once to the consideration of 
Artificial Preventive Inoculation, which I will dis- 
cuss entirely from my own point of view, and base 
my remarks almost wholly upon my own work and 
its results. Pasteurism differs as much from Jenner- 
ism as does artificial preventive inoculation from vac- 
cination, as practiced at present. Jennerism and 
vaccination consist in the inoculation of the cause of 
the disease to be prevented thereby, bound upon or 
mixed up with the products of the disease ; that is, 
as they are found in its specific lesion at a certain 
period of its development. 
Pasteurism, or artificial preventive inoculation, or 
even inoculation in the most exact sense of modern 
experimental etiology, is quite another thing. In- 
stead of introducing the cause mixed up with any 
products of disease, we isolate it therefrom, cultivate 
it, and, by one of several methods found suitable, so 
mitigate the virulent activity of the cause, that we 
can inoculate without serious danger to the individual 
thua treated. 
It has become a generally accepted fact that all in- 
fectious diseases are due to a specific cause, which 33 
belongs to some specific species of microscopic vege- 
table life. The scientific class to which these objects 
belong is the fungi, their special name being bacteria, 
or, in common parlance, germs. It is not necessary 
to go into any description of the various varieties of 
these germs in an article of this kind; still, it is ne- 
cessary that we know a little something of the manner 
of action of that class in which we are momentarily 
especially interested. 
The diseases of animals in which Pasteur has been, 
beyond question, successful in preventing natural in- 
fection by his method of inoculation, the names of 
which have already been given, and to which may be 
added swine plague, the yellow fever, and Texas 
fever in cattle, as well as typhoid fever, are all what 
are known as forms of septicaemia, or blood poison ; 
the specific poison in each case being the direct result 
of certain unknown physiologic action on the part of 
the specific germ, which causes each of these diseases. 
All these diseases have also another attribute in com- 
mon, viz.: they are extra-organismal in origin ; that 
is, the place of primary development of the specific 
germ which causes each of these diseases is outside 
the animal organism, or in the earth or earthy 
material. 
Though he has never to my knowledge stated it, 
still I think Pasteur should be credited with recog- 
nizing the fact that cow-pox was but mitigated small- 
pox, rendered, as has been said, non-malignant in 
character by successive generations of transmission 
from cow to cow in an accidental and unintentional 
manner. Pasteur endeavors to do this same thing 
intelligently. He but repeated the lesson thus learned 
in his first attempts at mitigating the action of the 
germs of anthrax, hen-cholera, and rouget by experi- 
mental inoculation in various species of animals, and 
he found that w7hile in some species a given germ 34 
acquired even more virulence than it possessed when 
taken from an animal in which it had caused the 
natural disease, and kept on increasing in virulence 
for a time as he passed it from animal to animal of a 
certain species, still, on the other hand, the same 
procedure in another species of animal, carried on 
through a long series, not only caused the germ to 
lose in virulence, but after a time they acquired a 
certain standard of mildness, and could be safely used 
for inoculation. 
This was imitating the results in small-pox. Pas- 
teur went further ! Such a method as the above is 
open to the very serious objection that, not only is 
an almost unlimited number of experimental animals 
necessary, but the expense would finally be such as 
to decidedly interfere with any practical benefits re- 
sulting. This led Pasteur and others to seek similar 
results in entirely different directions. They experi- 
mented in many ways, but the continued exposure of 
artificial culture of given germs to a certain degree of 
temperature, or their development in from two to 
two and one-half pressures of oxygen for a certain 
time, have given the best and most trustworthy re- 
sults. A most singular fact came from these experi- 
ments, which was that when once a certain desired 
degree of mitigated virulence had been obtained by 
either of these methods, that cultivation of the same 
germs could then be carried on in the ordinary room 
temperature for an indefinite period, each succeeding 
generation retaining the same degree of mitigated 
virulence as the previous one and the mother culture. 
The result has shown that a preventive virus against 
anthrax, rouget, and hen cholera has been success- 
fully made by these investigators, by one or the other 
of methods mentioned. 
For a very valuable account of Chauveau's experi- 
ments in mitigating the virulence of bacillus anthracis in this way, see Times and Register, Philadelphia, 
April, 1890. 
Based largely upon the teachings and work of Pas- 
teur nearly all investigators in this important field of 
research have been of the idea, and generally are at 
present, that a preventive virus can be obtained by 
the simple mitigation of the virulence of a germ of a 
naturally non-recurrent disease by artificial cultiva- 
tion under certain conditions of heat, or oxygen pres- 
sure, or some other method, so that the introduction 
of such a culture in a given amount, produces simply 
a mild and non-fatal form of disease. 
The practical results of inoculation, or vaccination, 
seem to confirm this idea. For myself, I was also of 
the same opinion, until it was completely shattered 
by most extensive experiences, and apparently posi- 
tive experimental results. 
It is but justice to myself to inform my colleagues, 
both investigators and physicians, that this business 
of "preventive inoculation" inswine-plague is not 
of my own choosing ; that I am bitterly opposed to 
it; that I feel it is disgraceful in one being, or mak- 
ing any pretensions of being, a scientific investigator; 
that I think and know that all and every result of 
original research should be the property of the peo- 
ple ; and I can truly say that, had I not the remote 
hope that the rewards of this distasteful business may 
be such as to enable me to build, equip, and plenti- 
fully endow a laboratory and hospitals for the inves- 
tigation of the non-recurring diseases of child-life, 
where the poorest genius can have free opportunity to 
study and be educated, or pursue original investiga- 
tions, that I would have nothing to do with it. I 
would not continue it for a moment, to enjoy even 
a handsome business income, but I hope the end 
desired may be attained, and that the medical 
profession will eventually justify the unprofessional 
35 36 
means on account of the worth of the object at- 
tempted. 
Self respect forced me to resign my position as in- 
vestigator in Nebraska, on account of three years of 
uninterrupted intrigue, and unlimited abuse and 
opposition excited against me by the Agricultural 
Department at Washington. No other course was 
open to me. 
This inoculation against swine-plague is a matter 
of more importance to the advancement of original 
research in this country than at first may appear to 
the casual observer. I can safely assert that so much 
success has been attained, that it can no longer be 
open to a single doubt. Its actual practical value 
can only be estimated by large and extensive experi- 
ences continued for several years. Its present value 
and interest is, however, mainly scientific. 
Having sufficiently demonstrated that inoculation 
will prevent swine-plague, as Pasteur's work has 
been the initiative incentive to all investigations in 
this direction, so should this result have the same 
value in this country, and be a stimulus to the most 
energetic and exact endeavors to develop protective 
inoculation against other non-recurrent diseases in 
our live stock, but even more particularly those of 
our own species. If my work only succeeds in put- 
ting this stimulus in such activity that work will be 
inaugurated and earnestly continued, and lead to the 
establishment of National and State laboratories, all 
that I have labored for will be attained, and my life 
be pronounced a success. My interest is far more in 
inspiring and inaugurating true original research in 
this country, than in my personal success as an in- 
vestigator. If the last can only lead to the first 
then I am satisfied. 
In this paper I unfortunately can only place before 
the world my failures, as in justice to my financial 37 
supporter I cannot publish the methods by which I 
have obtained success, much as it is my desire to, 
but something valuable can, I hope, be learned from 
my failures. 
As has been said, I began the search for preven- 
tive inoculation in swine-plague on the principle of 
mitigation of virulence, so as to obtain a virus that 
would not seriously disturb the hogs, and yet render 
them immune from disease. 
At this time and place I will simply reassert that 
this has been done, and in so many places and in so 
many hundreds of animals, that the fact is beyond 
the possibility of doubt. 
From this non-virulent point of view the first de- 
sideratum is to obtain a virus, or culture, of a con- 
stant degree of mild virulence. As inferred above, 
various methods have been empirically discovered. 
Pasteur, as has been seen, used certain forms of ani- 
mal life at first, carrying the virus from one to another 
of a given species in which it slowly lost in virulence 
until it acquired a desired benignity. He also found 
that an augmentation of virulence, until it acquired 
an equal Constance in malignity, could be produced 
in some other species of animals. This was too ex- 
pensive a method to be practiced. He then found 
that the exposure of the cultures to a certain degree 
of heat for a certain time would also produce the de- 
sired mitigation. Others have proven these observa- 
tions to be trustworthy. Chauveau works by the 
oxygen pressure method, and has obtained the same 
result. We need not discuss others. 
The great fact is that once the desired degree of 
mitigation has been obtained in any virus, that the 
virus thus obtained can be then cultivated in ordi- 
nary media (fluid) outside of those conditions, and 
that the virus thus obtained will retain this constant 
degree of mitigated virulence for a long time. If a 38 
spore-bearing germ, this condition may be retained 
almost indefinitely, but in non-spore-bearing organisms 
it is not so reliably constant. The first thing, then, 
was to obtain a constancy of virulence in the desired 
direction. 
I have never thought that either of the above 
methods was strictly scientific. They are too arti- 
ficial ; hence, as far as swine-plague is concerned, I 
have endeavored to produce the same result by a 
more natural procedure. That is, by chemical nutri- 
tion, for this virulence is entirely a physiological- 
chemical result, and absolutely dependent upon the 
nutritive qualities of the media in which germs de- 
velop. It has been said that, once a desired degree 
of mitigation was arrived at, it could be retained in 
artificial cultures for an indefinite period. 
With regard to the swine-plague germ, other in- 
vestigators have not only declared this to be impossi- 
ble, but also unnecessary. I shall show that it can 
be successfully done, but cannot, unfortunately, tell 
how, for reasons previously given. I think I shall 
also be able to show that, in a certain sense, no great 
result has been obtained when we have done it. 
Attention has been called to the fact that others 
could not obtain this constancy in mitigated virulence, 
and, furthermore, that it was unnecessary in swine- 
plague. 
In a paper on " Hog-Cholera," which is the dis- 
ease I call "Swine-Plague," one of these diletants 
says : "I shall not go into the details of preventive 
measures in this paper. * * * What you are 
doubtless interested in, is the new points which may 
have been brought out by our investigations. The 
most interesting of these is our attempt to confer im- 
munity by inoculation. We soon found that there 
was no indication for attenuating the virus for this 
purpose, because the strongest virus might be intro- 39 
duced hypodermically, with impunity, in considerable 
doses. Now, as the stronger a virus is, the higher 
the degree of immunity it produces, you can see 
that there is every reason for using fresh unattenu- 
ated cultures. We made many experiments, and 
found that hogs might safely be inoculated with 
one-quarter to one-half a ccm. for the first dose, 
and that the second dose might be safely increased 
to two to three ccms., showing that some degree of 
immunity had been gained. Those twice inoculated, 
however, were still unable to stand exposure in an 
infected pen, and could not be fed the virus without 
fatal results."-Journal of Comparative Medicine. 
Philadelphia, Pa., April, 1888, Vol. IX, p. 149. 
Let us consider these statements a little. First, 
not only their general tenor, but that of all the sub- 
sequent publications of the same author, show, ac- 
cording to him, that swine-plague cannot be prevented 
by inoculation. It is interesting to read, in this con- 
nection, what the same authority said in 1883, five 
years previous to the above, when, as can be shown, 
he had no idea what the germ of swine-plague was ; 
but, supporting himself on the authority of Pasteur, 
he asserted a micro-coccus to be that cause. Swine- 
plague was not discovered in France until 1887. 
He said: "Our investigations have shown that 
the plague is a non recurrent fever, and that the 
germs might be cultivated; they have even proved 
that these germs may be made to lose their virulent 
qualities and produce a mild infection. Surely we 
have here sufficient evidence to show that a reliable 
vaccine might be easily prepared if we carried our in- 
vestigation but a little way farther. 
' ' Mr. Pasteur has recently confirmed (?) our Ameri- 
can investigations in a very complete manner. He 
shows that the disease is produced by a micro-coccus ; 
that it is non-recurrent; that the virus may be attenu- 40 
ated, and protected from subsequent attacks, and he 
promises a vaccine by spring."-Report Department 
of Agriculture. 1883, page 57. 
That the above was made out of whole cloth is 
shown by the following : 
First. A micro-coccus is not the cause of swine- 
plague. 
Second. The government knew of only one swine- 
plague until 1886, and a coccus is not the cause of 
either hog-cholera, or the nondescript disease it now 
calls swine-plague. 
Third. Pasteur studied ' ' rouget, ' ' and not sw'ine- 
plague. 
Fourth. A bacillus has been proven to be the 
cause of "rouget," and not a micro-coccus. 
Fifth. Pasteur's virus against rouge t does pre- 
vent. 
Sixth. If in 1883, this person said : "Surely we had 
sufficient evidence to show that a reliable virus 
might be easily prepared," what has become of 
that evidence since then ? It is singular that 
my success in preventive inoculation should dispel 
it as easily as the morning sun does the fog of the 
prairie. 
As to preventive inoculation in swine-plague I will 
quote the following only from my address before the 
Rive-Stock Breeders' Association, of Nebraska, Feb- 
ruary last: 
' ' My only sin has been that I forestalled the ambi- 
tion of the government, which being one ' for the 
people,' we might suppose w7ould be an act to receive 
kind endorsement rather than the most bitter and 
fanatical opposition. 
' ' Even that ' Board of Inquiry ' admitted that in- 
oculated hogs stood the tests they were exposed to 
better than hogs which had recovered from a natural 
outbreak. 41 
" Professor Burrill, in a moment of unprejudiced 
honesty, wrote me that ' none stood the tests so well 
as the Nebraska hogs.' 
"With these facts publicly announced to those 
most and directly interested, a political neophyte, in 
a recent publication, claims that he has a letter from 
the president of that ' Board of Inquiry,' Dr. Shake- 
speare, in which the latter says that the Nebraska 
hogs were equally sick, when put in a diseased herd, 
with a lot of healthy ones also put in the same herd. 
Then why did not Dr. Shakespeare tell the farmers 
that in the published report ? 
"Was it not the sacred duty which he owed to 
science and to every hog raiser in this country ? 
' ' On the contrary, that part of the report to which 
he had his name attached says, without any reserva- 
tion whatever, that the Nebraska hogs stood the tests 
better than those naturally recovered. 
" What more then, can you ask ? 
" Does not that assertion of Dr. Shakespeare's, in- 
dorsed by Prof. Burrill's signature, and by his later 
letter, not only emphasize and confirm the reiterated 
statement of the government, that the disease is 
' non-recurrent? ' 
' ' If the inoculated hogs stood the tests better than 
recovered hogs from a naturally ' non-recurrence ' 
disease, then art beats nature, and inoculation has 
proven to be a reliable fact, one established beyond 
question, no matter if an occasional failure does occur, 
as it has in my practice since I left you, and since I 
have had to entrust the business to other hands, and, 
from the very opposition of the government, resort to 
an undue precaution, which, had I remained here, 
would never have been necessary.'' 
To the above I add one testimonial from a prac- 
tical farmer, contributed to the Breeder1 s Gazette, of 
April 2, 1890: 42 
" Mr. R. C. Fulton, Taylorville, Ill., writes : ' The 
reports in your issue of March 19, by C. A. Cantine, 
A. R. Hubbard, Marion Ryman, on inoculation, re- 
mind me that it is surely due Dr. F. S. Billings, also 
the farming world, that I should make report of my 
experience with two inoculated boars sent me for the 
purpose of proving, so far as possible, that inocula- 
tion is a preventive. The pair of hogs were received 
about February 8, and at once placed in the lot of 
about one acre, adjoining which were breeding pens 
for six sows. In the lot and pens named I had lost 
forty head of hogs, and yet had a few left when the 
boars were placed in pens. These hogs have con- 
tinuously bedded on the same litter, and in the same 
pen where eight had laid while sick and dying. I 
have them fed on ear corn only, and that was strewn 
on the excrement and cleanings from other infected 
pens, and for drink they have had slough water, 
which catches the waste of barn, lot and pens above 
named. This I consider a crucial test, and I felt 
nothing short of that would satisfy even my unpre- 
judiced mind as to the prevention of swine-plague by 
inoculation. Many of my neighbors have looked on 
incredulously, and I was even laughed at by m^ 
more verdant ones; but the laugh ceased ; incredu- 
lity has vanished, and all admit that something pre- 
vented, and what else but inoculation ? For my 
herds have been reduced or swept away before. In 
conclusion, the hogs named are doing fine on the 
same ground where forty died.' " 
Scientifically speaking, this is sufficient evidence 
to prove the fact. 
Now, as to that irresponsible statement that "we 
soon found that there was no indication for at- 
tenuating the virus, because the strongest virus 
might be induced with impunity in considerable 
doses." 43 
Whether one ccm. is to be looked upon as a " con- 
siderable dose ' ' or not I will not attempt to decide, 
but that I can select an outbreak of swine-plague 
from which that dose, in the first generation of culti- 
vation, will produce fatal effects, as well as that 
inoculation will prevent, is shown by the fol- 
lowing : 
In December, 1888, I desired to test a number of 
inoculated hogs for a special purpose. At the State 
Penitentiary there raged one of the most malignant 
outbreaks on record. By malignant I mean acutely 
fatal, not prolonged, and still fatal in its course. 
From one of these hogs I obtained a culture and in- 
oculated, in the flank, seventeen healthy uninoculated 
hogs, and twenty inoculated ones, with one ccm. of 
the first culture, Fifteen of the uninoculated pigs 
died, and all were sick. The others were not affected 
at all. Cultures from the original penitentiary hog, 
and from several of those which died, with full 
autopsy notes, were sent to Professor Welch, of Johns 
Hopkins. 
This, then, shows that " considerable doses " of the 
strongest virus cannot be used with impunity^ and 
also that immunity can be produced by mitigated 
cultures, as none of the inoculated hogs were made 
seriously ill during their treatment. 
The germ of swine-plague varies very much in 
acuteness of virulence, as every one knows, and this is 
shown in nearly every outbreak one studies. Rabbits 
have been considered to be suitable animals to con- 
trol this point, of which one observer says : "Rabbits 
die from hog-cholera inoculations in six to nine days." 
-Journal Com. Med,., e. c., p. 133. On this point 
Welch says : "The duration of life after inoculation 
of rabbits is usually from five to fourteen days, and it 
may be even longer."-Journal Com. Med., Vol. I, 
1890, p. 52. "Rabbits when inoculated die usually 44 
in six to eight days."-Bulletin, Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, December, 1889. 
In an attack upon preventive inoculation, made by 
a tool of the government before the Kansas Board of 
Agriculture, we find the following interesting passages : 
1. "Prevention by inoculation depends upon the 
well-known principle that one attack of a contagious 
disease generally protects the individual from the 
subsequent attacks of that contagion. All individuals, 
however, are not protected in this way from any dis- 
ease, and in many cases the protection only lasts for 
a short period." 
Comment is unnecessary. 
2. " The dose is not the only factor which must be 
considered when inoculating. The strength of the 
virus varies in different outbreaks of the disease so 
much that the dose, which would be perfectly harm- 
less in one case, would be as certainly fatal in an- 
other. As there is no reliable test of the strength of 
virus, but experiments upon hogs, and a^the strength 
varies during artificial cultivation, you will see that 
it is next to impossible to accurately know the 
strength of the virus he (Billings) is using." 
3. "Inoculation in practice consists in injecting 
under the skin as much of the strong virus of hog- 
cholera as can be safely given without producing a 
fatal type of disease. It must be remembered that in- 
oculation is very different from vaccination. The 
virus used in inoculation is the same as is found in 
hogs dying of the plague, while in vaccination a virus 
is used so weakened that it cannot cause a fatal dis- 
ease. No method of vaccination has yet been intro- 
duced for hog cholera. It is inoculation that is being 
advertised as a preventive for hog-cholera, and it is a 
question of the size of the dose whether the disturb- 
ance produced in the hog's body is mild or fatal in 
character. ' ' 45 
From all that has been quoted from these authori- 
ties it is evident that they have no idea of a constancy 
of virulence in the swine-plague bacilli, or that such 
can be obtained. 
It has already been stated that in Pasteur's and 
other methods of mitigation, when a certain desired 
degree of mitigated virulence had been once obtained, 
cultures of the same degree could be then carried on 
for an indefinite period. 
This led me to the study of the following ques- 
tions : 
i. Is there a mitigated or non-fatal degree of viru- 
lence to be found in natural outbreaks ? or, in other 
words, can a vaccine virus be at once obtained from a 
natural outbreak? This I proved to be an unques- 
tionable fact, easy of demonstration at any time, 
though it took much study and very close observa- 
tion of the relation of certain pathological lesions to 
the desired degree of virulence to obtain the knowl- 
edge, and some experimentation to prove it. 
2. Can this or any natural degree of virulence be 
retained indefinitely by any method of artificial cul- 
tivation by nutritive measures alone ? 
3. Can this micro-organism be fed up and down in 
virulence by changes in nutrition alone ? 
4. Can a direct proportional relation be estab- 
lished between a certain dose of virus of known viru- 
lence in small animals and a safe or preventive dose 
of the same virus in hogs ? 
The three last questions have all been solved in 
a most exact and satisfactory manner. 
It is possible for me to almost invariably select an 
outbreak of swine-plague from which a given dose of 
the first cultivation will kill a rabbit on subcutane- 
ous inoculation in approximately four days, and, by 
a very slight variation in nutrition, to bring and re- 46 
tain such a virus to this point of virulence in a very- 
few generations. 
In order to demonstrate this point, I will give the 
result with several viruses : 
VIRUS NO. 1. 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation. 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Sep.28 1888. 
4 
35 
Jah. 5, 1889. 
4 
76 
Oct. 2, " 
5 
78 
" 16, " 
4 
79 
" 23, " 
4 
80 
" 30, " 
3^ 
81 
Nov.10, " 
" 17, " 
4 
82 
3^ 
83 
" 25, " 
4 
8-1 
Dec. 2, " 
4 
85 
" 9, " 
4 
90 
Jan.26,1890. 
4 
93 
Feb.22, " 
95 
Mar. 9, " 
" 31, " 
2-^ 
98 
6* 
99 
Apr. 6, " 
" 13, " 
4 
100 
4 
101 
" 20, " 
4 
VIRUS NO. 2. t 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation, 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Sep.28,1888. 
4 
77 
Oct. 5, 1889. 
4 
78 
" 13, " 
3^ 
79 
" 16, " 
4 
80 
" 23, " 
3'4 
81 
" 30, " 
3% 
82 
Nov.10, " 
3 l/2 
83 
" 17, " 
3 4 
84 
" 25, " 
3^ 
85 
Dec 4, " 
5 
86 
" 11, " 
3% 
90 
Jan. 10,1890. 
3% 
95 
Feb. 22, " 
3^ 
* This rabbit had survived a very delicate inoculation, made on 16th of 
March. 
t From an outbreak on another farm. 
VIRUS NO. 3. 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation. 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Oct. 2, 1889. 
2 
" 9, " 
3 
3 
" 16, " 
3 
4 
"23, " 
4 
5 
" 30, " 
4 
6 
Nov.10, " 
31^ 
7 
" 17> « 
3^ 
8 
" 25, " 
4 
9 
Dee. 4, " 
334 
10 
" 11, " 
3^ 
11 
" 18, " 
3^ 
15 
Jan.19, 1890. 
3^ 
19 
Feb.22, " 
3% 
VIRUS NO. 4. 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation. 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Oct. 3,1889. 
3 
2 
" 9, " 
4 
3 
" 16, " 
4 
4 
" 23, " 
4 
5 
" 30, " 
3% 
6 
Nov.10, " 
4 
7 
" 17, " 
3 
12 
Dec. 24, " 
3% 
13 
Jan. 1, 1890. 
3% 
. 16 
" 26, " 
334 
20 
Mar. 2, " 
3% 
21 
" 9, " 
3 
24 
" 31, " 
3% 47 
VIRUS NO. 5. 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation. 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Dec.19,1889. 
214 
2 
" 24, " 
&A 
3 
Jan, 1,1890. 
4 
4 
" 10, " 
4 
5 
" 19, " 
4 
6 
" 26, " 
4 
8 
Feb. 22, " 
3% 
13 
Mar.31, " 
4^ 
VIRUS NO. 6. 
Generation. 
Date of in- 
oculation. 
Killing 
time, days. 
1 
Jan 30,1890. 
2% 
2 
Feo. 2, " 
2X 
4 
" 22, " 
3^1 
6 
Mar. 9, " 
4 
9 
" 31, " 
4 
10 
Apr. 6, " 
4 
IL 
" 13, " 
4 
From the first generation of this virus No. 5, seven 
healthy hogs received one cubic centimeter in the 
inside of the thigF subcutaneously; two of these 
died, which were closely confined, within ten days ; 
the others were at first loosely confined, and showed 
no ill effects ; but after the fifteenth day they were 
changed to the closest confinement possible, and all 
died between the thirtieth and thirty-fifth days; 
while five others, which were given plenty of room 
to roam about, and which received the same dose, all 
lived. This experiment was made to demonstrate, if 
possible, a certain well-known fact of practical expe- 
rience. 
It has always been told me that if such hogs were 
shipped, that the death-rate would be checked, or 
even stopped, while on the cars ; and it has also be- 
come more or less current among farmers that to put 
sick hogs on a wagon and rattle them over frozen and 
rough ground was a good thing to do. In some few 
cases evil results have followed inoculation. Some 
few hogs have either died after a prolonged illness or 
become somewhat stunted ; while others, inoculated 
with the same dose of the same virus, have shown no 
ill effect. It therefore becomes an interesting question 
to discover why this should occur in one case, and not 
in a great many others. 48 
After very careful inquiry it was discovered that, 
where ill effects followed inoculation, the animals 
were kept very closely confined, and had not room 
enough to move around, and that this was the cause; 
or, in other words, insufficient movement to stimu- 
late the circulation. A very striking example of this 
occurred in two bunches of hogs inoculated at the 
same time for a gentleman who is a personal friend 
and a great advocate of inoculation. At his house 
were twenty-five hogs in a small pen, while in a 
field, running with his cattle, were about one hun- 
dred and twenty-five others. Those in the small pen 
had a prolonged and very severe attack of swine- 
plague in consequence 'of the inoculation, though 
none died ; while the one hundred and twenty-five 
in the field showed no ill eflects whatever. 
Exactly the same thing occurs in typhoid fever 
in man. The patient has recovered from his ty- 
phoid, and the physician congratulates him ; the 
next day he is cyanotic, rapid breathing is present, 
and pneumonia develops : owing to stagnation of 
the circulation, and the reflow, or pressure, of the 
blood to the point of least resistance, which is the 
lungs. 
The above tables show that a standard of viru- 
lent activity can be produced in cultivations of the 
swine-plague germs simply by proper nutrition. 
They further show that not only the selection of ma- 
terial from a natural outbreak can at once provide a 
preventive virus; but also that, in successive culti- 
vations for generations, this standard can be retained 
at a greater degree of virulence than other observers 
claim to have found in natural outbreaks by their 
controls in rabbits. 
Now I must positively, and against every and any 
assertion to the contrary, assert that I can prevent 
swine-plague by inoculation. Were I not bound as 49 
I am, I would give records of other viruses possess- 
ing no virulence whatever, which have produced and 
still produce an absolutely immune condition in nearly 
every hog inoculated. 
To discover this fact has cost an immense amount 
of experimentation and a large amount of money. 
There is one difficulty about it which cannot be over- 
come. While the virulence of a culture can accu- 
rately be tested on small animals, and the exact 
relation be established between that virulence and a 
safe dose in the animals in which a given non-recur- 
rent disease occurs naturally, we have no means of 
testing the preventive properties of a virus, except 
the results in inoculated animals of the species in 
which the disease naturally occurs, and this takes a 
long time and a great many inoculations. 
When I began this work, I thought that a test of 
virulence, with a proper regulation of the propor- 
tional dose, was all that was necessary ; now I know 
that a test of virulence with such proportional con- 
trol is of no value whatever with reference to the 
protecting power of a given virus. I know this by an 
experience in over one thousand five hundred hogs. 
Either one of the six viruses named above will kill a 
hog by subcutaneous inoculation in sufficient doses, 
but more reliably by feeding experiments ; yet not 
a single one of them will protect a hog an iota against 
the cholera; while a germ virus, without any viru- 
lence whatever, even by forced feeding, will protect 
securely and almost invariably, in single doses of one 
cubic centimeter. 
This assertion is obviously contradictory to all pre- 
vious experiences, and yet, if one stops to think a 
moment, supported by the most trustworthy experi- 
ence which we have. 
There is no question that, under certain circum- 
stances, using a natural virus, we must reduce the 50 
virulence to a certain degree in order to produce a 
fatal attack by inoculation; but, on the other side, 
we do not need to have a virus possessing any viru- 
lence whatever to produce immunity in a non-recur- 
rent disease. 
Vaccination gives the best possible example of the 
point we desire to call attention to. While in vario- 
lation small-pox itself was transmitted, and the vari- 
olated person was as much a source of contagion as 
one having the natural small-pox, the vaccinated 
individual is absolutely non-dangerous to those com- 
ing in relation therewith. 
What has been lost ? 
Certainly something ; and the practical evidence 
conclusively demonstrates that it must have been, or 
is, that peculiar element of the germ, the contagion, 
which rendered the variolated person dangerous while 
the vaccinated one is not. 
It is a question of nutrition only, which can be 
demonstrated by exact experimentation if we only try. 
The bovine organism must offer certain nutritive 
conditions which, in some unknown way, rob the 
micro-organismal cause of small-pox of its contagious 
(small-pox) producing qualities, while the preventive 
one is retained in optima forma. 
The same thing can be done with the germ of 
swine-plague, but to no such degree of absolute cer- 
tainty as nature or accident has accomplished in vac- 
cina. While it is the easiest possible matter to feed 
the germ of swine-plague up and down in virulence, 
to make it extra malignant, or rob it of that quality 
altogether by changes in the chemical nutrient, it is 
a most difficult thing to retain the preventive physio- 
logical qualities of these germs. Sometimes it can 
be done for months, and again they are lost in a 
few generations ; but we have no control over these 
matters except the practical tests. None of the small 51 
animals which I have tried can be easily or success- 
fully rendered immune against swine-plague. Rab- 
bits and guinea-pigs can be rendered somewhat im- 
mune by repeated inoculations of small quantities of 
virus ; but, so far, I have been unable to render them 
absolutely so. Pigeons vary ; but no more artificial 
immunity can be produced in them than they natu- 
rally have, as will be shown later, and at another time. 
As has been repeatedly mentioned, a test or control 
of virulence has nothing whatever to do with the 
protective power of a virus. It simply shows that it 
is safe to use. and that we can establish the point of 
safety by experiment. 
This shows that we have all been working on an 
erroneous basis. Prevention has no relation to specific 
virulence. Others have demonstrated the same fact. 
In The Times and Register, Philadelphia, of 
April 12 and 19, were published a series of most in- 
teresting experiments by Chauveau, the most eminent 
and conservative experimenter in France, in which 
he demonstrates it in connection with bacillus anthra- 
cis. Chauveau says,1 that " Energetic vaccinal (pre- 
ventive) properties have been discovered in a patho- 
genic germ (B. anthracis) not only attenuated in its 
virulence, but systematically deprived of all infectious 
properties-rendered so neutral and inactive that we 
were forced to ask ourselves if this transformed mi- 
crobe had not become a new species." 
''Cultures of bacillus anthracis in this■ condition 
can then be carried on in the ordinary atmosphere." 
Chauveau conclusively shows that bacillus anthra- 
cis produces two chemical elements in its bio-physio- 
logical development; the one toxic, or specifically 
disease-producing, the other having exclusively pre- 
1 The original appeared in Archives Med. Experimen tale, 
March, 1889. 52 
ventive properties; and that, by cultivation in two 
to two and one-half pressures of oxygen, the toxic 
properties may be, or are, lost, while the preventive 
are retained. Or, to use his own words, "In fact, in 
my experiments the vaccine property of the trans- 
formed bacillus anthracis is so active, and so well sur- 
vives the loss of all infectious properties, that we 
seem authorized to consider these two properties as 
being absolutely independent of each other, and as 
each belonging to a special product of microbe 
life." 
Another point in evidence of this fact is this : if 
we take a culture of the germ of swine-plague which 
has experimentally been shown to actively possess 
both of these preventive and toxic, or disease-pro- 
ducing, qualities, by actual experimentation, and 
freeze it solidly for several days, and then inoculate 
or feed hogs with it, we will find that, while it has 
retained its toxic, or disease-producing, properties 
without mitigation, it has entirely lost its preventive 
property. 
That bacillus anthracis has the power of producing 
these two essentially different chemical elements has 
also been well shown by Heuppe and Wood. 
Though I sometimes criticise the conclusions of my 
friend Hueppe, still I think him one of the most compe- 
tent and reliable patho-bacteriologists living,especially 
in regard to physiologico-chemical attributes of patho- 
genic bacteria. In the publication mentioned Hueppe 
and Wood describe a saprc phytic bacillus absolutely 
without virulent qualities, which, in every method 
of artificial cultivation, or under the microscope, bore 
such close resemblance to B. anthracis that it could 
not be distinguished from that organism. It is a 
well-known fact that all previous experimenters had 
not been able to render mice immune to anthrax by 
any system of preventive inoculation ; and yet, with 53 
this absolutely non-virulent germ, Heuppe and Wood 
were successful in rendering these most susceptible 
animals immune to extremely virulent cultures of 
bacillus anthracis. 
Now, it is neither logical nor reasonable to suppose 
that this was any other micro-organism than bacillus 
anthracis. It was derived from the earth possessing 
exactly the attributes described by these observers. 
In this case the nutritive conditions in the earth had 
naturally produced exactly the same physiological- 
chemical conditions in bacillus anthracis which Chau- 
veau has conclusively demonstrated to be possible of 
production by the cultivation of the same germ under 
certain degrees of oxygen pressure, and I nave been 
able to do with the swine-plague germ by chemical 
nutrition, the only difference being that while I have, 
as it were, "gone it blind," not being a chemist, and 
accidentally hit on a means of arriving at a certain 
practical result by innumerable changes in chemical 
nutrition, until I have empirically arrived at a 
method of obtaining a certain result for an un- 
certain length of time, Chauveau has found a definite 
means of obtaining it with reference to the bacillus 
anthracis. 
That the chemical nutrition method is the one by 
which practical results will eventually be obtained 
goes without question ; but it remains for the chemist 
alone to really discover and perfect it. 
The discovery of Hueppe and Wood regarding ba- 
cillus anthracis finds its confirmation in many dis- 
eases of extra-organismal origin, and explains that 
heretofore mysterious condition known as ' ' acclimat- 
ization ' ' in diseases of this character : such as yellow 
fever, Southern cattle plague, etc. In these cases 
the specific germs, in a saprophytic or non-malig- 
nant condition, must have gained entrance to the 
individuals possessing this acclimatization immunity 54 
while they possessed this prophylactic power, though 
not posses ing the toxic or disease producing. 
That all these exogenous germs are, or can be, 
changed to saprophytic must be self-evident; and 
that their toxic or disease-producing property is ac- 
quired by peculiar nutritive conditions in the soil 
which they naturally inhabit seems also equally clear. 
In fact, their acquisition of disease-producing quali- 
ties is dependent upon the prolonged saturation of 
the ground with the excreta of animal life or the de- 
cayed products of animal tissues. The delicacy of 
the action of these germs in different nutritive media 
is so little understood, and has enjoyed so little ex- 
perimentation, especially chemical investigation, that 
we really know very little about it; yet it is the open 
field of original research which will eventually lead 
to success, and from which we can only hope for de- 
cidedly practical results. 
Why the swine plague virus should lose its viru- 
lent properties in cattle, or even when cultivated in 
sterilized cattle urine, is a question no one can decide 
at present. Why the germ of the corn fodder dis- 
ease should not be toxic to animals while still mani- 
festing its presence by specific lesions in green and 
growing corn, and only become toxic when and after 
the leaves begin to wither and the clilorophyl suffers 
chemical changes, are also questions of a nutritive 
nature which can only be elucidated by the most 
exact chemical investigations. 
At one time in their existence all these organisms 
are saprophytic, and again they become pathogeni- 
cally toxic, all of which is determined by the mate- 
rial they develop in. 
Before closing, I desire to say a word in relation to 
fluid cultivating media. When the study of bacteri- 
ology first began, these were the only media we had, 
and it was next to impossible to obtain perfectly 55 
pure cultures for the want of a reliable means of 
isolation. Koch supplied us with this means, but, 
in doing so, led to an altogether too great neglect 
of fluid media, which has retarded investigation to 
a degree not sufficiently estimated by the majority of 
investigators. 
Once it was thought that the only way by which 
pure cultures could be legitimately attained was by 
the isolation method offered by the solid media on 
plates, according to Koch. Now we know that, in 
the majority of cases, if we inoculate a susceptible 
animal with material containing a variety of micro- 
organism derived from an animal having a specific 
disease, in general, the germ of the latter only will 
develop; and that, from the specific lesions, we can 
generally obtain the specific germ in a pure condition 
if we take the necessary precautions. It is singular 
that the lesson of this experimental experience has 
not made more of an impression upon investigators. 
Why is not the s :me rule applicable to animals or 
individuals, afflicted with the natural diseases? In 
other words, why not pathologically decide which is 
the specific lesion in a given disease, and by experi- 
ence discover the period in which it is truly specific, 
and then make cultures directly from it at that time ? 
This point decided, pure fluid cultures can be almost 
as easily and surely obtained in septicaemic dis- 
eases as by recourse to solid media. 
In swine-plague, Southern cattle-plague, and the 
cornstalk disease, all septicaemic in character, I have 
invariably used fluid cultures in connection with the 
solid, and with equally successful results as to purity. 
The virus No. i, to which attention has been 
called, is now in its one hundred and second genera- 
tion : that is, it has been carried on successfully 
through about one hundred fluid cultures without one 
single pollution occurring during all that time. We 56 
must resort to fluid cultures if we will be successful 
in preventive inoculation, for this procedure is one, as 
well as virulent inoculation, which depends entirely 
upon the chemical food offered, and only with fluid 
media can we experiment in that direction or pre- 
pare the way for the chemist. Germs which soon lose 
their virulence on or in solid media retain the same 
indefinitely in appropriate fluid cultures. Starting 
with a pure culture, there is no more danger of pollu- 
tion in the transference from fluid media to the same 
than in solid media, if one is rapid and dexterous in his 
manipulations. It is simply a question of strict ster- 
ilization and rapid dexterity which gives satisfactory 
results in either case. 
Let me again say that it is only from nutritive 
experimentation with chemical fluid media that we 
can arrive at any satisfactory results.