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Susceptible To Disease: The fact that most of the soldiers came from rural communities made them highly susceptible to disease to such "city sicknesses" as smallpox and chicken pox. The death rate from these diseases was unbelievably high. In the Federal armies, sickness and disease accounted for 7 of every 10 deaths. One authority has estimated that among the Confederates three men perished from disease for every man killed in battle.
VACCINES AND VACCINATION, vaksenz, vak-si-na'shun. Inoculation with infectioi material to prevent naturally acquired disea: was introduced into western Europe in 171 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The wii of the British ambassador at Constantinople, sh had observed in Turkey the practice of producin smallpox (variola) in susceptible to disease persons by th inoculation of vesicle material from a case of th disease. This was known as variolation, an the resulting disease, variola inoculata, was appre ciably less severe than the naturally occurrin; disease.
BCG Vaccine.—It has not been possible to produce an effective immunity to tuberculosis by inoculation with killed tubercle bacilli, and an avirulent strain of this bacterium that can be inoculated into susceptible to disease animals, including man, without producing disease is required. Such a strain was developed at the Institut Pasteur from a bovine strain of the tubercle bacillus whose virulence was attenuated by continuous culture in the laboratory on a glycerin-bile-potato medium for 13 years. At the end of this time, in 1921, it was no longer able to produce disease. |
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