IMPROVED METHOD OF VACCINATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume V, Issue 1427, 23 March 1872, Page 3

IMPROVED METHOD OF VACCINATION.

Iv view of the great spread of tho small-pox at the present day in America and Europe, and the importance of successful vaccination, the suggestion of an English physicau, Mr. Ellis, may be of some importance. This gentleman remarks that ordinary vaccination is performed by scraping off the ebidermis and thrusting the vaccine virus into a puncture made by the lancet. A greatly improved method, however, consists in first raising a small blister by a drop of cantharides applied to the skin. This is to be pricked and the drop let out, and then a line vaccine point put into tliis place, and withdrawn after a moment of delay ; the epidermis falls buck and quite excludes the air,shutting out any germs thab may be floating in the atmosphere. Tliis method has been practised by Mr EUis for twenty years, nnd out of hundreds of cases of vaccination which he has performed, he has jigger had an instance of blood poisoning^^ abscess, while by the ordinary metKod the occurrence of secondary ab-

scess is by no means uncommon, and that of pyffimm is often observed. The comparative safety of this method is believed to be flue, first, to the exclusion of the aii- ; and second the lesser size of the aperture for the introduction of mischief than when tho punctures are made by the lancet.—Harper's New Month]j* Magazine.