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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1672, 26 April 1866, Page 2

Medical—A writer in the Times describes tha following new mode of vaccination. I think it worth suggesting, to those who are Taccinating their cattle, whether a method of vaccination which I have practised for many years on the human subject might not be equally efficacious in the brute. The object of the vaccinator is, first of all, to obtain an absorbent surface from which the lymph can be taken up and carried into the blood. Ordinarily this is effected by scraping off the protecting outer covering of the skin by the lancet, but this frequently draws blood, and there is a constant ri6k of the lymph being washed out of the wound by that means. For many years past I have ceased to use the lancet in vaccinating, and I proceed in the following way:—l touch the arm with a minute drop of a fluid in common use in our profession, called*Liquorvesicatorius;' this is allowed to dry, and in a few hours a little bead-like blister, the size of a pin's head, appears on the spot. With a very finepointed penknife this little blister is then cut, the drop of serum wiped 'Way, and the ivory point, charged with fresh vaccine lymph, is sli| ped under the thin skin. After lying there for a minute it is withdrawn, and the layer of cuticle pressed gently back. The result is an almost unvarying success. It is only by a rare exception that this mode fails of communicating the virus, and mothers (and probably the baby, if it could express itself,) aro generally thankful to escape the dreaded lancet. To instance its success. During the public alarm about smallpox a year or two ago re-vaccination was practised on a great scale, and very often failed, but out of 100 young persons whom I had to vaccinate this method failed only in one instance. It succeeded even in one girl who had formerly had an attack of mild smallpox. I would recommend veterinary surgeons to make trial of this plan of vaccination. They will be caretul to select those portions of the surface which are free from hair, and where the skin is well supplied with bloodvessels.