J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)
I. Friedrich: The Spreading of Jenner's Vaccination in Hungary
i /¡_ 2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) of them was made by thread, the other by lancet covered with fresh vaccinal material, the third with fresh material and finally there was the method of Osiander, the doctor of Göttingen, who used blistering plaster. 2 1 In fact the first three methods were different from each other only in their way of storing the material: the variola limph was kept either on thread or on vaccination lancet made of silver ivory, and the thread or the lancet with variola on it diluted by water was put in a scratch made either on the thigh or on the arm. Inoculation performed by thread did not take easily, therefore, one had to make scratchings at four different places and even this often proved to be unreliable as the thread fell out from the abrasion not infrequently. The vaccination lancet was introduced instead of the former method. They tried to avoid the storing and transporting of the material as the inoculation with fresh vaccina seemed to be more secure when the vaccina, taken from an other person's variola pustula, was vaccinated directly into another person. This so-called arm to arm vaccination led to violent debates and became the main point of attack of the antivaccinators later on. Finally there was still the method of Osiander. He put a vesicant on one's arm, opened the arising blister and put the material under the skin. It still belonged to the course of action that twenty-four hours ater the vaccination the arm had to be washed with w rarm milk and "pomade". De Carro discarded this method as in his opinion the moisture of the blister was neutralizing the effect of the vaccine. Neither was Sámuel Várađi the follower of this method because —as he wrote in his book —the "operation" was more painful and it required a lot of care and besides it was too lengthy: it took twenty a thirty days while an inoculation took an effect and healed up. The quality of vaccine and its storing caused a lot of problems, too, and among them we can find some which one living among modern sanitary conditions and being spoilt by technics already laughs at. Ferenc Bene, too, dwelt on the necessity of the quality of vaccine in his book on Jenner's vaccination. Further vaccination with variola poison which had been vaccinated into the man was already a superior method. First the material was taken either directly from the udder of a cow, or from the abscess on the hoofs of horses, or sometimes from variolous sheep. In the case of arm to arm vaccination, writes Bene, one has to take care that the further inoculation of the moisture must take place on the sixth, seventh, or eighth day after vaccination. The material taken after the tenth day is already unsuitable for vaccination, it will not take effect or it will cause sucker-variola which does not save one from small-pox. The older the vaccine is, the more uncertain the result of vaccination is. As the debates did not die down even in medical circles, one can understand the thousand uncertainties, fears, misgivings of non-professionals. 2 1 Várađi, Sámuel: A tehén himlő avagy a vaktzina természetének és terjesztése módjainak rövid elő adása (A Short Lecture on the Nature of Cow-pox and on the Modes of Its Spreading) Bécs, 1802. p. 52—72.
