Other Vaccines during WWI - THE 1918 INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:52 pm
"THE 1918 INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC WAS A VACCINE-CAUSED DISEASE
E. McBean (Vaccination The Silent Killer p28)
Very few people realize that the worst epidemic ever to hit America, the
Spanish Influenza of 1918 was the after effect of the massive nation-wide
vaccine campaign. ..................
If we check back in history to that 1918 flu period, we will see that it
suddenly struck just after the end of World War I when our soldiers were
returning home from overseas. That was the first war in which all the known
vaccines were forced on all the servicemen. This mish-mash of poison drugs
and putrid protein of which the vaccines were composed, caused such
widespread disease and death among the soldiers that it was the common talk
of the day, that more of our men were being killed by medical shots than by
enemy shots from guns. Thousands were invalided home or to military
hospitals, as hopeless wrecks, before they ever saw a day of battle. The
death and disease rate among the vaccinated soldiers was four times higher
than among the unvaccinated civilians. But this did not stop the vaccine
promoters. Vaccine has always been big business, and so it was continued
doggedly."
*********************
Vaccines in use during WWI
Besides smallpox vaccine, there is a history of typhoid vaccines, plague
vaccines, diphtheria, rabies vaccine, tetanus antitoxin
http://www.who.int/vaccines-diseases/hi ... tory.shtml
# 1885 Rabies
# 1897 Plague
http://www.worldpsychology.net/World%20 ... s/marriage
8.htm
1895 Diptheria vaccination program begins. Over the period lasting until
1907, 63,249 cases of diptheria were treated with anti-toxin. Over 8,900
died, giving a fatality rate of 14%. Over the same period, 11,716 cases
were not treated with anti-toxin, of which 703 died, giving a fatality rate
of 6%.
1919 Diptheria vaccinations injure 60 and kill 10 in Texas.
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/20 ... 526733.asp
But US Army records show that seven men dropped dead after being vaccinated.
A report from US Secretary of War Henry L Stimson not only verified these
deaths but also stated that there had been 63 deaths and 28,585 cases of
hepatitis as a direct result of yellow fever vaccination during only six
months of the war.
That was only one of the 14 to 25 shots given to recruits.
Army records also reveal that after vaccination became compulsory in the US
Army in 1911, not only did typhoid increase rapidly but all other vaccinal
diseases increased at an alarming rate.
After America entered the war in 1917, the death rate from typhoid
vaccination rose to the highest point in the history of the US Army.
The deaths occurred after the shots were given in sanitary American
hospitals and well-supervised army camps in France, where sanitation had
been practised for years.
The report of the Surgeon-General of the US Army shows that during 1917
there were admitted into the army hospitals 19,608 men suffering from
anti-typhoid inoculation and vaccinia.
******
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-35678
from the medicine, history of article
The other great hazard of war that was brought under control in World War I
was tetanus. This was achieved by the prophylactic injection of tetanus
antitoxin into all wounded men. The serum was originally prepared by the
bacteriologists Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato in 1890–92, and
the results of this first large-scale trial amply confirmed its efficacy. ...
In 1897 the English bacteriologist Almroth Wright introduced a vaccine
prepared from killed typhoid bacilli as a preventive of typhoid.
Preliminary trials in the Indian army produced excellent results, and
typhoid vaccination was adopted for the use of British troops serving in
the South African War. Unfortunately, the method of administration was
inadequately
***********
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... ed&list_ui
ds=10963505&dopt=Citation
South Med J. 2000 Aug;93(8):763-7. Related Articles, Links
'Bacilli and bullets': William Osler and the antivaccination movement.
Greenberg SB.
Department of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Baylor College of
Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Public discourse concerning current vaccination recommendations has
dramatically increased. The current battle is not new, having had a lengthy
foreshadowing during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over a 30-year
period, a concerted effort to limit the use of smallpox vaccine grew at the
very time typhoid vaccines were being developed and advocated for
widespread prevention. As a long time advocate for widespread smallpox
vaccination and a supporter of the newly tested typhoid vaccine, Sir
William Osler entered the public debate at the beginning of World War I.
Osler was asked to address the officers and men in the British army on the
need for typhoid vaccination. His speech entitled "Bacilli and Bullets"
outlined the medical reasons for getting inoculated against typhoid.
Osler's strong support for typhoid vaccination of the British troops was
met by opposition in Parliament but not by most of the troops. Osler's
arguments in support of vaccination failed to respond to the concept of
"conscientious objection," which was central to the antivaccinationists'
argument. Similar arguments are being propounded by current antivaccination
groups.
**********
http://www.smallpox.army.mil/messageMap ... sp?cID=152
From 1777 to today, vaccines protected American troops from dangerous
infections. Typhoid vaccine reduced typhoid casualties from 20,000 in
Spanish-American War of 1898 to just 1,500 in World War I.
*********
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... _103382403
"In 1899 during the Boer War, the British developed the typhoid vaccine. As
history has shown, people are usually opposed to vaccines, and the
opposition to the typhoid vaccine grew among the British Army troops.
Opposition personnel even boarded transport ships in Southampton Harbor and
threw the typhoid vaccine into the water. As a result, the British Army
made the typhoid vaccine optional and only 14,000 soldiers volunteered to
take it. During the Boer War itself, 58,000 British troops contracted
typhoid fever and 9,000 needlessly died from the disease. Among those
vaccinated, only 2 percent became infected, and they survived. The overall
result, however, was that the British lost the Boer War. But a lesson had
been learned; in 1914 during World War 1,97 percent of the British troops
opted to take the typhoid vaccine."
*********
http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/187 ... 57599.html
August 17, 1870 in History
Frederick Russell, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
http://www.mnmed.org/publications/MNMed ... lanck.html
Published monthly by the Minnesota Medical Association
February 2002/Volume 85
The History of Immunization in the U.S. Armed Forces
For centuries, the U.S. military has led the charge against infectious
disease.
"Even before the Spanish-American War, the new science of bacteriology was
marching on. In Paris in 1898, Fernand Widal showed that the serum from a
recovered patient would cause typhoid bacteria to clump. From that came the
Widal test, the first serodiagnosis.
In Germany in 1896, Richard Pfeiffer demonstrated that cholera bacilli
would agglutinate in vivo as well as in guinea pig peritoneum, which
suggested to him and Elmo Wright in England that perhaps dead bacilli could
produce an antibody response. This understanding led, in 1896, to the
development of a typhoid vaccine, which was used by the British during the
Boer War. Lt. Col. William Leishman of England continued this research,
developing standard methods of production and performing statistically
sound epidemiological studies, which by 1908 showed that two shots of
typhoid vaccine gave excellent protection.
In 1908, U.S. Army Surgeon General Robert O’Reilly decided that the U.S.
Army needed to study Leishman’s vaccine. He sent Capt. Frederick Russell to
England to study with Leishman and then to learn Pfeiffer’s methodology in
Germany. Russell returned to the Army Medical School laboratories in
Washington, D.C., and began to make vaccines with the combination of German
and English methods.
In 1911, Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood (who began his army
career as a medical officer) ordered that the Army be immunized and that
the immunizations be recorded. So from 1911 on, the Army and Navy personnel
were immunized against typhoid fever. This made a critical difference in
the health of the military personnel. The high rates of morbidity and
mortality during the Spanish-American War in 1898 (from typhoid) faded to
essentially nothing by World War I."
***********
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi? ... he_history
_of_medicine/v074/74.2hardy.html&session=23645538
Hardy, Anne, Dr ""Straight back to Barbarism": Antityphoid Inoculation and
the Great War, 1914"
Bulletin of the History of Medicine - Volume 74, Number 2, Summer 2000, pp.
265-290
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Excerpt
On 27 August 1914, just three weeks after the outbreak of the Great War,
Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, wrote
a letter to the Times, in which he urged the necessity of compulsorily
vaccinating British troops against typhoid. "In war," he pressed, "the
microbe kills more than the bullet," and he reminded his readers that more
men had died of dysentery and typhoid in the Boer War than had died in
action. 1 Osler's plea was supported, in the first week of September, by
letters from Sir Lauder Brunton, an acknowledged leader of the medical
profession, and Sir Almroth Wright, head of the Inoculation Department at
St Mary's Hospital, London, and a pioneer of antityphoid vaccine. 2 On 28
September Wright wrote again, arguing the case for compulsory vaccination
at far greater length. "An army going on active service," he stated, "goes
from the sanitary conditions of civilization straight back to those of
barbarism. It goes out to confront dangers which have, in settled
communities, been so completely extinguished as to have passed almost out
of mind." 3 [End Page 265]
On the face of it, these letters may be read as a reflection of medical
altruism, of concern that governmental and military authorities should take
advantage of the latest developments of modern medicine in protecting their
armies and the wider war effort from the ravages of disease--but the
reality was less prosaic, less disinterested, and considerably more
complicated. Behind these letters lay a continuing tension between the
British medical community's attempts to gain acceptance for the perceived
benefits of immunization, and the political consensus and popular
sensitivities established within the wider social context of British
liberal adjustment to a modernizing industrial society. 4 The context of
war, moreover, sharpened a parallel...
*************
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/behring/
The Introduction of Serum Therapy
The first successful therapeutic serum treatment of a child suffering from
diphtheria occurred in 1891. Until then more than 50,000 children in
Germany died yearly of diphtheria. During the first few years, there was no
successful breakthrough for this form of therapy, as the antitoxins were
not sufficiently concentrated. Not until the development of enrichment by
the bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) along with a precise
quantification and standardization protocol, was an exact determination of
quality of the antitoxins presented and successfully developed. Behring
subsequently decided to draw up a contract with Ehrlich as the foundation
of their future collaboration. They organized a laboratory under a railroad
circle (Stadtbahnbogen) in Berlin, where they could then obtain the serum
in large amounts by using large animals – first sheep and later horses.
In 1892, Behring and the Hoechst chemical and pharmaceutical company at
Frankfurt/Main, started working together, as they recognized the
therapeutic potential of the diphtheria antitoxin. From 1894, the
production and marketing of the therapeutic serum began at Hoechst. Besides
many positive reactions, there was also noticeable criticism. Resistance,
however, was soon put aside, due to the success of the therapy.
The Marburg Years
Behring was given the opportunity to start a university career through one
of the leading officers (Ministerialrat) of the Prussian Ministry of
Education and Cultural Affairs, Friedrich Althoff (1839-1908), who wanted
to improve the control of epidemics in Prussia by supporting
bacteriological research. After a short period as professor at the
University of Halle-Wittenberg, Behring was recruited by Althoff to take
over the vacant chair in hygiene at Philipps Marburg University on April 1,
1895. His appointment as full professor followed shortly thereafter against
the will of the faculty, who besides all of Behring's outstanding
discoveries, wanted a university lecturer who would broadly represent the
field. However, Althoff rejected all counterproposals and Behring took over
as Director of the Institute of Hygiene at Marburg. His position included
giving lectures for hygiene and concurrently held a teaching contract in
the history of medicine. In 1896, the Marburg Institute of Hygiene moved to
a building on a road nearby Pilgrimstein Road, previously the Surgery
Clinic. Behring divided the Institute into two departments, a Research
Department for Experimental Therapy and a Teaching Department for Hygiene
and Bacteriology. He remained Director of the Institute until his
retirement as professor in May 1916.
Scientific Contacts
Behring belonged to a scientific discussion group called "The Marburg
Circle" (das Marburger Kränzchen), whose other members were the zoologist
Eugen Korschelt (1858-1946), the surgeon Paul Friedrich (1864-1916), the
botanist Arthur Meyer (1850-1922), the physiologist Friedrich Schenk
(1862-1916), the pathologist Carl August Beneke (1861-1945) and the
pharmacologist August Gürber (1864-1937). They often met at Behring's home
where they had rounds of vivid and prolific scientific discussions.
Active Protective Vaccination against Diphtheria
Old vials (1897 and 1906) with hand-written labels.
Photo: Courtesy of Aventis Behring
The therapeutic serum developed by Behring prevented diphtheria for only a
short period of time. In 1901, Behring, therefore, for the first time, used
a diphtheria innoculation of bacteria with reduced virulence. With this
active immunization he hoped to help the body also produce antitoxins. As a
supporter of the humoral theory of immune response, Behring believed in the
long-term protective action of these antitoxins found in serum. It is
well-established knowledge today that active vaccination stimulates the
antitoxin (antibody) producing cells to full function.
The development of an active vaccine took a few years. In 1913, Behring
went public with his diphtheria protective agent, T.A. (Toxin-Antitoxin).
It contained a mixture of diphtheria toxin and therapeutic serum antitoxin.
The toxin was meant to cause a light general response of the body, but not
to harm the person who is vaccinated. In addition, it was designed to
provide long-term protection. The new drug was tested at various clinics
and was proven to be non-harmful and effective.
*************
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/behring/
Tetanus Therapeutic Serum during World War I
In 1891, tetanus serum was introduced considerably more quickly in clinical
practices than the diphtheria serum. The Agricultural Ministry supported
research efforts to develop a therapeutic agent against tetanus to protect
agriculturally valuable animals. The large amounts of serum required were
obtained through the immunization of horses. However, there was no
substantial clinical testing on humans; this led the Military
Administration to accept it only on a small scale at the beginning of World
War I.
During the first months of the war, this restraint led to massive losses of
human lives. Also, after the distribution of the tetanus antitoxins in the
military hospitals, many futile attempts at therapy were noted. At the end
of 1914, as a result of Behring's constructive assistance, the injection of
serum was established as preventing disease. Starting in April 1915, the
mistakes in dosage and the shortage of supplies were overcome and the
numbers of sick fell dramatically. Behring was declared "Saviour of the
German Soldiers" and was awarded the the Prussian Iron Cross medal.
************
http://www.vaccines.army.mil/default.as ... idv&dID=43
In 1897, Nocard demonstrated the protective effect of passively transferred
antitoxin, and passive immunization in humans was used during World War I.
http://www.mmhc.com/altc/displayArticle ... =altcac407
Passive immunization was used during World War I
***********
History of Plague Vaccines
Killed bacteria have been used in plague vaccines since 1896
http://www.vnh.org/MedAspChemBioWar/cha ... munization
The first plague vaccine, consisting of killed whole cells, was developed
by Russian physician Waldemar M. W. Haffkine, working in India in 1897.
http://www.vnh.org/MedAspChemBioWar/cha ... munization
Plague vaccines have been used with varying effectiveness since the late
nineteenth century.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 69-7143930
?v=glance
Yersin went on to discover a vaccine for the plague, which he began
administering in India in 1898.
*********
http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/vir ... story2.htm
As more immunizing agents became available, people saw the benefit of
immunizing large groups, such as soldiers. During World War I, they were
vaccinated against diphtheria
Also a history of Biological Warfare in WWI
1915
Dr Anton Dilger, a noted German-American Physician, established a small
biological agent production facility at his northwest Washington, DC home.
Using cultures of Bacillus Anthracis (Anthrax) and Pseudomonas Mallei
(Glanders) supplied by the Imperial German government, Dilger produced an
estimated liter or more of liquid agent. He reportedly passed the agent and
a standard inoculation device to dock workers in Baltimore who used them to
infect a reported 3500 horses, mules and cattle destined for the Allied
troops who were waging World War 1. Several Hundred military personnel were
infected as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
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homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes
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Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936
E. McBean (Vaccination The Silent Killer p28)
Very few people realize that the worst epidemic ever to hit America, the
Spanish Influenza of 1918 was the after effect of the massive nation-wide
vaccine campaign. ..................
If we check back in history to that 1918 flu period, we will see that it
suddenly struck just after the end of World War I when our soldiers were
returning home from overseas. That was the first war in which all the known
vaccines were forced on all the servicemen. This mish-mash of poison drugs
and putrid protein of which the vaccines were composed, caused such
widespread disease and death among the soldiers that it was the common talk
of the day, that more of our men were being killed by medical shots than by
enemy shots from guns. Thousands were invalided home or to military
hospitals, as hopeless wrecks, before they ever saw a day of battle. The
death and disease rate among the vaccinated soldiers was four times higher
than among the unvaccinated civilians. But this did not stop the vaccine
promoters. Vaccine has always been big business, and so it was continued
doggedly."
*********************
Vaccines in use during WWI
Besides smallpox vaccine, there is a history of typhoid vaccines, plague
vaccines, diphtheria, rabies vaccine, tetanus antitoxin
http://www.who.int/vaccines-diseases/hi ... tory.shtml
# 1885 Rabies
# 1897 Plague
http://www.worldpsychology.net/World%20 ... s/marriage
8.htm
1895 Diptheria vaccination program begins. Over the period lasting until
1907, 63,249 cases of diptheria were treated with anti-toxin. Over 8,900
died, giving a fatality rate of 14%. Over the same period, 11,716 cases
were not treated with anti-toxin, of which 703 died, giving a fatality rate
of 6%.
1919 Diptheria vaccinations injure 60 and kill 10 in Texas.
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/20 ... 526733.asp
But US Army records show that seven men dropped dead after being vaccinated.
A report from US Secretary of War Henry L Stimson not only verified these
deaths but also stated that there had been 63 deaths and 28,585 cases of
hepatitis as a direct result of yellow fever vaccination during only six
months of the war.
That was only one of the 14 to 25 shots given to recruits.
Army records also reveal that after vaccination became compulsory in the US
Army in 1911, not only did typhoid increase rapidly but all other vaccinal
diseases increased at an alarming rate.
After America entered the war in 1917, the death rate from typhoid
vaccination rose to the highest point in the history of the US Army.
The deaths occurred after the shots were given in sanitary American
hospitals and well-supervised army camps in France, where sanitation had
been practised for years.
The report of the Surgeon-General of the US Army shows that during 1917
there were admitted into the army hospitals 19,608 men suffering from
anti-typhoid inoculation and vaccinia.
******
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-35678
from the medicine, history of article
The other great hazard of war that was brought under control in World War I
was tetanus. This was achieved by the prophylactic injection of tetanus
antitoxin into all wounded men. The serum was originally prepared by the
bacteriologists Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato in 1890–92, and
the results of this first large-scale trial amply confirmed its efficacy. ...
In 1897 the English bacteriologist Almroth Wright introduced a vaccine
prepared from killed typhoid bacilli as a preventive of typhoid.
Preliminary trials in the Indian army produced excellent results, and
typhoid vaccination was adopted for the use of British troops serving in
the South African War. Unfortunately, the method of administration was
inadequately
***********
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... ed&list_ui
ds=10963505&dopt=Citation
South Med J. 2000 Aug;93(8):763-7. Related Articles, Links
'Bacilli and bullets': William Osler and the antivaccination movement.
Greenberg SB.
Department of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Baylor College of
Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Public discourse concerning current vaccination recommendations has
dramatically increased. The current battle is not new, having had a lengthy
foreshadowing during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over a 30-year
period, a concerted effort to limit the use of smallpox vaccine grew at the
very time typhoid vaccines were being developed and advocated for
widespread prevention. As a long time advocate for widespread smallpox
vaccination and a supporter of the newly tested typhoid vaccine, Sir
William Osler entered the public debate at the beginning of World War I.
Osler was asked to address the officers and men in the British army on the
need for typhoid vaccination. His speech entitled "Bacilli and Bullets"
outlined the medical reasons for getting inoculated against typhoid.
Osler's strong support for typhoid vaccination of the British troops was
met by opposition in Parliament but not by most of the troops. Osler's
arguments in support of vaccination failed to respond to the concept of
"conscientious objection," which was central to the antivaccinationists'
argument. Similar arguments are being propounded by current antivaccination
groups.
**********
http://www.smallpox.army.mil/messageMap ... sp?cID=152
From 1777 to today, vaccines protected American troops from dangerous
infections. Typhoid vaccine reduced typhoid casualties from 20,000 in
Spanish-American War of 1898 to just 1,500 in World War I.
*********
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... _103382403
"In 1899 during the Boer War, the British developed the typhoid vaccine. As
history has shown, people are usually opposed to vaccines, and the
opposition to the typhoid vaccine grew among the British Army troops.
Opposition personnel even boarded transport ships in Southampton Harbor and
threw the typhoid vaccine into the water. As a result, the British Army
made the typhoid vaccine optional and only 14,000 soldiers volunteered to
take it. During the Boer War itself, 58,000 British troops contracted
typhoid fever and 9,000 needlessly died from the disease. Among those
vaccinated, only 2 percent became infected, and they survived. The overall
result, however, was that the British lost the Boer War. But a lesson had
been learned; in 1914 during World War 1,97 percent of the British troops
opted to take the typhoid vaccine."
*********
http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/187 ... 57599.html
August 17, 1870 in History
Frederick Russell, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine
http://www.mnmed.org/publications/MNMed ... lanck.html
Published monthly by the Minnesota Medical Association
February 2002/Volume 85
The History of Immunization in the U.S. Armed Forces
For centuries, the U.S. military has led the charge against infectious
disease.
"Even before the Spanish-American War, the new science of bacteriology was
marching on. In Paris in 1898, Fernand Widal showed that the serum from a
recovered patient would cause typhoid bacteria to clump. From that came the
Widal test, the first serodiagnosis.
In Germany in 1896, Richard Pfeiffer demonstrated that cholera bacilli
would agglutinate in vivo as well as in guinea pig peritoneum, which
suggested to him and Elmo Wright in England that perhaps dead bacilli could
produce an antibody response. This understanding led, in 1896, to the
development of a typhoid vaccine, which was used by the British during the
Boer War. Lt. Col. William Leishman of England continued this research,
developing standard methods of production and performing statistically
sound epidemiological studies, which by 1908 showed that two shots of
typhoid vaccine gave excellent protection.
In 1908, U.S. Army Surgeon General Robert O’Reilly decided that the U.S.
Army needed to study Leishman’s vaccine. He sent Capt. Frederick Russell to
England to study with Leishman and then to learn Pfeiffer’s methodology in
Germany. Russell returned to the Army Medical School laboratories in
Washington, D.C., and began to make vaccines with the combination of German
and English methods.
In 1911, Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood (who began his army
career as a medical officer) ordered that the Army be immunized and that
the immunizations be recorded. So from 1911 on, the Army and Navy personnel
were immunized against typhoid fever. This made a critical difference in
the health of the military personnel. The high rates of morbidity and
mortality during the Spanish-American War in 1898 (from typhoid) faded to
essentially nothing by World War I."
***********
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi? ... he_history
_of_medicine/v074/74.2hardy.html&session=23645538
Hardy, Anne, Dr ""Straight back to Barbarism": Antityphoid Inoculation and
the Great War, 1914"
Bulletin of the History of Medicine - Volume 74, Number 2, Summer 2000, pp.
265-290
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Excerpt
On 27 August 1914, just three weeks after the outbreak of the Great War,
Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, wrote
a letter to the Times, in which he urged the necessity of compulsorily
vaccinating British troops against typhoid. "In war," he pressed, "the
microbe kills more than the bullet," and he reminded his readers that more
men had died of dysentery and typhoid in the Boer War than had died in
action. 1 Osler's plea was supported, in the first week of September, by
letters from Sir Lauder Brunton, an acknowledged leader of the medical
profession, and Sir Almroth Wright, head of the Inoculation Department at
St Mary's Hospital, London, and a pioneer of antityphoid vaccine. 2 On 28
September Wright wrote again, arguing the case for compulsory vaccination
at far greater length. "An army going on active service," he stated, "goes
from the sanitary conditions of civilization straight back to those of
barbarism. It goes out to confront dangers which have, in settled
communities, been so completely extinguished as to have passed almost out
of mind." 3 [End Page 265]
On the face of it, these letters may be read as a reflection of medical
altruism, of concern that governmental and military authorities should take
advantage of the latest developments of modern medicine in protecting their
armies and the wider war effort from the ravages of disease--but the
reality was less prosaic, less disinterested, and considerably more
complicated. Behind these letters lay a continuing tension between the
British medical community's attempts to gain acceptance for the perceived
benefits of immunization, and the political consensus and popular
sensitivities established within the wider social context of British
liberal adjustment to a modernizing industrial society. 4 The context of
war, moreover, sharpened a parallel...
*************
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/behring/
The Introduction of Serum Therapy
The first successful therapeutic serum treatment of a child suffering from
diphtheria occurred in 1891. Until then more than 50,000 children in
Germany died yearly of diphtheria. During the first few years, there was no
successful breakthrough for this form of therapy, as the antitoxins were
not sufficiently concentrated. Not until the development of enrichment by
the bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) along with a precise
quantification and standardization protocol, was an exact determination of
quality of the antitoxins presented and successfully developed. Behring
subsequently decided to draw up a contract with Ehrlich as the foundation
of their future collaboration. They organized a laboratory under a railroad
circle (Stadtbahnbogen) in Berlin, where they could then obtain the serum
in large amounts by using large animals – first sheep and later horses.
In 1892, Behring and the Hoechst chemical and pharmaceutical company at
Frankfurt/Main, started working together, as they recognized the
therapeutic potential of the diphtheria antitoxin. From 1894, the
production and marketing of the therapeutic serum began at Hoechst. Besides
many positive reactions, there was also noticeable criticism. Resistance,
however, was soon put aside, due to the success of the therapy.
The Marburg Years
Behring was given the opportunity to start a university career through one
of the leading officers (Ministerialrat) of the Prussian Ministry of
Education and Cultural Affairs, Friedrich Althoff (1839-1908), who wanted
to improve the control of epidemics in Prussia by supporting
bacteriological research. After a short period as professor at the
University of Halle-Wittenberg, Behring was recruited by Althoff to take
over the vacant chair in hygiene at Philipps Marburg University on April 1,
1895. His appointment as full professor followed shortly thereafter against
the will of the faculty, who besides all of Behring's outstanding
discoveries, wanted a university lecturer who would broadly represent the
field. However, Althoff rejected all counterproposals and Behring took over
as Director of the Institute of Hygiene at Marburg. His position included
giving lectures for hygiene and concurrently held a teaching contract in
the history of medicine. In 1896, the Marburg Institute of Hygiene moved to
a building on a road nearby Pilgrimstein Road, previously the Surgery
Clinic. Behring divided the Institute into two departments, a Research
Department for Experimental Therapy and a Teaching Department for Hygiene
and Bacteriology. He remained Director of the Institute until his
retirement as professor in May 1916.
Scientific Contacts
Behring belonged to a scientific discussion group called "The Marburg
Circle" (das Marburger Kränzchen), whose other members were the zoologist
Eugen Korschelt (1858-1946), the surgeon Paul Friedrich (1864-1916), the
botanist Arthur Meyer (1850-1922), the physiologist Friedrich Schenk
(1862-1916), the pathologist Carl August Beneke (1861-1945) and the
pharmacologist August Gürber (1864-1937). They often met at Behring's home
where they had rounds of vivid and prolific scientific discussions.
Active Protective Vaccination against Diphtheria
Old vials (1897 and 1906) with hand-written labels.
Photo: Courtesy of Aventis Behring
The therapeutic serum developed by Behring prevented diphtheria for only a
short period of time. In 1901, Behring, therefore, for the first time, used
a diphtheria innoculation of bacteria with reduced virulence. With this
active immunization he hoped to help the body also produce antitoxins. As a
supporter of the humoral theory of immune response, Behring believed in the
long-term protective action of these antitoxins found in serum. It is
well-established knowledge today that active vaccination stimulates the
antitoxin (antibody) producing cells to full function.
The development of an active vaccine took a few years. In 1913, Behring
went public with his diphtheria protective agent, T.A. (Toxin-Antitoxin).
It contained a mixture of diphtheria toxin and therapeutic serum antitoxin.
The toxin was meant to cause a light general response of the body, but not
to harm the person who is vaccinated. In addition, it was designed to
provide long-term protection. The new drug was tested at various clinics
and was proven to be non-harmful and effective.
*************
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/behring/
Tetanus Therapeutic Serum during World War I
In 1891, tetanus serum was introduced considerably more quickly in clinical
practices than the diphtheria serum. The Agricultural Ministry supported
research efforts to develop a therapeutic agent against tetanus to protect
agriculturally valuable animals. The large amounts of serum required were
obtained through the immunization of horses. However, there was no
substantial clinical testing on humans; this led the Military
Administration to accept it only on a small scale at the beginning of World
War I.
During the first months of the war, this restraint led to massive losses of
human lives. Also, after the distribution of the tetanus antitoxins in the
military hospitals, many futile attempts at therapy were noted. At the end
of 1914, as a result of Behring's constructive assistance, the injection of
serum was established as preventing disease. Starting in April 1915, the
mistakes in dosage and the shortage of supplies were overcome and the
numbers of sick fell dramatically. Behring was declared "Saviour of the
German Soldiers" and was awarded the the Prussian Iron Cross medal.
************
http://www.vaccines.army.mil/default.as ... idv&dID=43
In 1897, Nocard demonstrated the protective effect of passively transferred
antitoxin, and passive immunization in humans was used during World War I.
http://www.mmhc.com/altc/displayArticle ... =altcac407
Passive immunization was used during World War I
***********
History of Plague Vaccines
Killed bacteria have been used in plague vaccines since 1896
http://www.vnh.org/MedAspChemBioWar/cha ... munization
The first plague vaccine, consisting of killed whole cells, was developed
by Russian physician Waldemar M. W. Haffkine, working in India in 1897.
http://www.vnh.org/MedAspChemBioWar/cha ... munization
Plague vaccines have been used with varying effectiveness since the late
nineteenth century.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 69-7143930
?v=glance
Yersin went on to discover a vaccine for the plague, which he began
administering in India in 1898.
*********
http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/vir ... story2.htm
As more immunizing agents became available, people saw the benefit of
immunizing large groups, such as soldiers. During World War I, they were
vaccinated against diphtheria
Also a history of Biological Warfare in WWI
1915
Dr Anton Dilger, a noted German-American Physician, established a small
biological agent production facility at his northwest Washington, DC home.
Using cultures of Bacillus Anthracis (Anthrax) and Pseudomonas Mallei
(Glanders) supplied by the Imperial German government, Dilger produced an
estimated liter or more of liquid agent. He reportedly passed the agent and
a standard inoculation device to dock workers in Baltimore who used them to
infect a reported 3500 horses, mules and cattle destined for the Allied
troops who were waging World War 1. Several Hundred military personnel were
infected as well.
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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
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