Report of a committee appointed by the Sanitary Commission to prepare a paper on the value of vaccination in armies.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of a committee appointed by the Sanitary Commission to prepare a paper on the value of vaccination in armies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2. In the second place, large enough to contain as much lymph as is sufficient for one vaccination. 3. In the third place, long enough to admit of both ends being sealed hermetically without subjecting the charge to the heat of the flame. 4. And, in the fourth place, of such strength as not to break easily in the mere handling. The following is the mean of several measurements which I have made of tubes, differing somewhat in size, but all of them capable of containing a sufficient charge of lymph, and of being sealed instantaneously at the flame of a candle, without sub- jecting the contained charge to the heat, and also strong enough to bear all necessary manipulations without breaking:— Average length 2| to 3 inches. Diameter 2g of an inch. Thickness of wall T^ of an inch. Calibre. The vesicles having been opened with a lancet in the usual way, the tube held in a position more or less inclined to the horizontal, is charged by applying one end of it (the straight end, if they be not both straight) to the exuding lymph which enters immediately by the force of capillary attraction. Allow as much to enter as will occupy from about one-seventh to one- half the length of the tube, according as its capacity is greater or less. As a general rule each tube should not be charged with more than will suffice for one vaccination. It is now to be sealed in one or other of the following ways:— Either, 1st, make the lymph gravitate towards the middle by holding the tube vertically and giving it a few slight shocks by striking the wrist on the arm or table; then seal the end by which the lymph entered by applying it to the surface of the flame of a candle, or any similar flame. It melts over and is sealed immediately. Proceed with the other end in the same way, but first plunge it suddenly, say half an inch into the flame, and as quickly withdraw it till it touches the surface, and hold it there till it too melts over. It is necessary to plunge it first into the flame, for this reason, that if it be at once applied to the external surface of the flame it melts over, no doubt, and is sealed; but before you have time to complete the process, and while the glass is still soft, the contained air expands with the heat, and forms a minute bulb, which either gives way on the instant, rendering it necessary for you to break off the end and commence anew, or, what is still worse, remains entire for the time, only to break afterwards, in consequence of its extreme tenuity of wall, by the lightest touch. Mr. Ceely has suggested that while this