Evening star., 1935-11-03
ONE CENT |SCOST
OF NEW VACCINE
Bits Of Chick Embryo Are
Substituted for Calf
Lymph in Tests.
BY HOWARD w. BLAKESLEE.
Associated Press Science Editor.

A Associated IreSS science Editor.
NEW YORK, November 2.-One
cent dose is the cost of making the
new Rockefeller scarless smallpox
Ivaccine-the vaccine produced in a
little glass bottle instead of from the
| body of calf.
Promised in 1t Is a means to end
for sood the public opposition to
smallpox vaccination which still ex-
lists in some sections. This Is the end,
too, not only of scars. but of pain,
sores, mild illness and risk Of tetanus.
The Rockefeller Institute for Medi-
| cal Research, after spending three
years developing and testing this
vaccine, offers it to public health
officers.
| Standing before several hundred Of
these officers at Milwaukee recently
/ Thomas M. Rivers, M. D., of the
Rockefeller Institute held up glass
bottle the size and shape of a table
salt shaker. The bottle was the sub
stitute for the long-suffering animal
. friend of man, the calf which is in
oculated with smallpox to produce
the ordinary vaccine.
! Specks Are Chick Embryo.
So clear were the bottles contents
that the health officers passed it from
hand to hand to see. These contents
were a few spoonfuls of slightly cloudy
liquid, in which were some barely
| visible SpeckS.
The Specks were bits of chick en-
Representatives, for the mass of a
living calf-taken completely sterile
from hens egg This sanitary
purity is the secret of the new vacine's
success.
In IS minutes, DR.. Rivers said,
| enough vaccine for 5000 children can
be made ready, SO that afterward, all
told, an hours wo.k over a few days
completes the preparation. One cent
dose is the cost of the vaccine itself,
| The ordinary glass ampule in which
1t is sealed to be sent to physicians
costs more than the vaccine
Several children were brought in.
one a baby, with the new vaccine in
! all stages. None was in discomfort.
Each bore on the arm a slightly red
| spot the size of half dollar.
All had been vaccinated by intra-
dermal injection with a hypodermic.
This substituted for the scratching
method used with ordinary small pox
vaccine. The method accounts partly
for the freedom from scars. Calf vac
cine is too virulent to be safe for
| hypodermic use
Usually No Reaction.
Usually, DR.. Rivers said. there is no
reaction from the tube vaccine. A few
persons have developed fevers of 100
to l03, but remarkably their fevers
seemed not to make them i'll.
But health officers were not sure
whether they wanted to get rid of the
smallpox vaccine scars. G. F. Nc
Chimes, NJ D. State epidemiologist.
Richmond, Va. said that 700 to 800
Virginia children have been given the
new vaccine
I'VE are not sure" he said. that
we can agree with DR.. Rivers on the
elimination of scars. 1t is very nice
for public health officers to have the
evidence of the scar. Records are
difficult to get A number of health
officers have expressed the same
opinion"
To this Dr. Rivers replied: In some
sections calf lymph (ordinary vaccine)
is not very popular. If you get vac
cine not so very popular. if you get
vaccine not so Objectionable. health
officers might be able to vaccinate
entire communities. In spite of calf
lymph. there is still smallpox in the
United States"
The duration of immunity from the
new vaccine is not known. 1t Is still
good at the end of one year, the
longest period that has been available
for a test.