1912 - 1923: acne and boils vaccines in NZ and Australia

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

In New Zealand, was this gem:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/Angladrion/APJ1912.jpg

Meanwhile in a book for Australian Mothers, written by a doctor in 1923, are these two gems.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/Angladrion/img210.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/Angladrion/img211.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/Angladrion/img212.jpg

so you see.... smallpox wasn't the only vaccine that doctors could reach for.

But here's the question.

If these vaccines were SO successful, why are they not used today???

and... why are they never talked about today.

Doctors then, believed in them, as much as doctors believe in vaccines today.

[Fièvre]

An immunization treatment with a vaccine should, therefore, act best in the second stage which is characterized by tissue-allergic phenomena, and in which the local therapeutics employed heretofore fail. As early as 60 years ago a vaccine was therefore developed from C. acnes and used experimentally (Alexander FLEMING in "Lancet" 1909, pages 1035-1038). While some authors have confirmed successful treatments between 1910 and 1921, others could not do likewise, and no further reports concerning such treatments can be found after about 1921. The treatment of acne vulgaris with vaccines was heretofore based on vaccine injection in which the quantity of the injected destroyed C. acnes could not be measured reliably. The reason for this must be considered to reside in the fact that C. acnes multiply in firmly cohesive cellular units of hundreds to several thousand bacteria.
A further disadvantage of the treatment by vaccine injection is that the injection of inactivated strains of C. acnes leads to an additional allergenicity. After the injection, there occurs regularly an outbreak of the acne efflorescence frequently having a considerable extent. Moreover, these bacteria antigens are not well tolerated in case of injection. The cause thereof is the formation of precipitating antibodies which, during the reaction with the antigen in the tissue, lead to an Arthus phenomenon like reaction and, also increase the Arthus phenomenon characterizing the inflammation reaction of the acne efflorescence. The dosage of the injections must therefore be increased slowly in 6 to 8 small individual injections and must not exceed a maximum of 10 4 germs per strain and per injection. At that time, there will be produced, initially, an allergenicity and, accordingly, during the cautious treatment of man, the outbreak of the focal acne points in the face; the partial melting-down thereof and, in unfavorable cases, an immunogenic polyneurities. When the dosage of the injection is lowered, however, the success becomes uncertain.
It has previously been attempted (vaccine of the MERIEUX Company Institut Merieux, 17 Rue Bourgelot, 69 Lyon, France) to add to a low acne bacterium dose other antigens which originate with the usual saprophytic accompanying germs (for example, skin streptococci, among others). This was to have the effect of controlling the ubiquitous germs secondarily involved in the melting-down processes of the foci in the florid acne. The successes of these attempts remain unsatisfactory.
Further disadvantages of the injection method are that the Beck and Gerrath strains, which are nearly identical, can be combined well, but the addition of the Vogel strain causes difficulties with regard to tolerance, and urea is not usable as an adjuvant.
The uncertain efficacy, the varying success of the treatment or healing, an often temporary increase of acne vulgaris with acute inflammatory phenomena and undesirable complications would therefore seem to indicate that the treatment of acne vulgaris with an injected vaccine is not a satisfactory therapy.
It has now been found that it is possible to eliminate the disadvantages and drawbacks described above relative to the injected vaccines, by means of a composition which is characterized by the fact that it can be administered orally, and that it contains an immunizing constituent, preferably together with a desensitizing constituent. Contained therein as the immunizing constituent is inactivated C. acnes, and as the desensitizing constituent metabolic products of bacterium acnes. The customary adjuvants, carriers and/or auxiliary agents may also be provided, if such is desired.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4057627.html

Wright, Fleming, Western,Morris and Dore, King Smith, Gilchrist, and Engman, worked on this ( http://www.doctortreatments.com/Diseases_Of_The_Skin/Class_VIII_Diseases_Of_The_Appendages_Diseases_Of_ The_Sebaceous_Glands_Acne.htm )
Those years a company boasted to have found a vaccine ...

[Serephina]

Very interesting.