Immunization against Rinderpest, with special reference to the use of dried goat spleen

Abstract

(a) The various methods of immunizing against rinderpest are briefly summarised, the use of goat adapted virus being dealt with more fully. (b) Experiments leading up to the production of a vaccine prepared from dried goat spleen are described. (c) The dried vaccine is prepared from the spleen of a goat destroyed on the fourth day after injection with goat adapted virus. The spleen is minced in a Latapie and the pulp rapidly dried in vacuo over calcium chloride. (d) Packed in a thermos jar of ice, which is replenished every third day, the vaccine is emulsified in normal saline immediately before use, and used in a dose of one gram for 400 cattle and one gram for 2 400 buffaloes, although experiments have shown that 0.00025 gram s equally effective for cattle. (e) Immunity commences within twenty-four hours and is solid within forty-eight hours. It endures for at least 755 days, the limit to which it has so far been tested. (f) 576 782 cattle and 42 108 buffaloes were inoculated during the fifteen months ending 31st March 1938. The mortality in them was 0.092 per cent. in cattle and 1.78 per cent. in buffaloes. Complete reports are not yet available, but those received show that from October 1935, to 31st March 1938, 759 792 cattle and 62 474 buffaloes were inoculated. (g) The opinion is expressed that to confer lasting immunity tissue vaccines must contain living virus.