The Daily Argus

VACCINATION.
How Long is it a Protection?
Prof. Dickson Says-Not More Than
a Year.
Other Distinguished Physicians Advise
Frequent Vaccination.
A single case of varioloid occurring in this
city has awakened people to the importance
of vaccination. And, as many people
are of opinion that it is not necessary
for them to be vaccinated because they
were vaccinated when children, we have
asked Dr. G. G. Craig to permit the publication
of letters on the subject received
by him in the winter of 1872. The first is
from Prof. Dickson, then Prof. Prac. Med.,
in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.
Prof. Dickson is not now living, but his
letter will be read with interest, coming
from a man of such high reputation and
large experience;
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 23, 1872.
G. G. CRAIG, M. D., Dear Doctor:-I
reply without delay to yours of the 17th
inst., containing certain questions concerning
small pox and vaccination.
No member of our profession has ventured
to trust to the protective power of
the vaccine as against small pox after the
lapse of an undefined period of time. In
other words re-vaccination is universally
advised-at each recurrence of epidemic
variola. We feel, with Niemeyer, that the
true uncertainty has been shifted in terms,
and that we now ask how short a period of
protection we must allot to vaccine, not how
long that protection lasts. Whatever we
may think, dogmatically, we feel that it is
best to take the safest side and act upon
Torrey's suggestion that "you cannot vaccinate
too often." We are trying to re-vaccinate
everybody, old and young,
who has not undergone the operation since
the present prevailing epidemic has set in.
My entire household was thus treated.-
We do not think it prudent to confide in
any history-nor in the most accurately
typical appearance of the scar or scars.
A very large proportion of the recent
and current cases of small pox and varioloid
are among subjects authentically recorded
as vaccinated and well vaccinated,
and well marked. The intervals that have
passed in this large series vary from
months to years; indeed there is nothing
definite to be stated with regard to this
point. Early in my own career I attended
a lady through a harsh attack of variola,
who had when a child in London been vaccinated
by Jenner himself and pronounced
to be permanently secure.