'Russia and India in 1903' [‎29v] (60/68)

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RUSSIA AND INDIA IN 1903.
Bombay, which has been converted into a vast Plague
Research Laboratory. There Professor Haffkine
works, with able assistants, six medical men, three
Europeans and three natives, and an extremely able,
cultivated, and sympathetic superintendent—Major
M. B. Bannerman, M.D.,of the Indian Medical Service.
Difficult it undoubtedly is for a layman to convey in
an intelligible manner to the lay mind the manifold
processes by which Professor Haffkine succeeds in
producing a vaccine which, if not wholly successful in
rendering the inoculated immune against plague, is
certainly successful in vastly reducing their chance of
attack, and, if that cannot be, of giving a chance of
recovery.
Obtaining the Bacillus and Preparing its Food.
The first process is the obtaining of the bacillus
from the plague-stricken patient. That this is done
by the mouth-suction of the surgeon, at the other end
of a “ pipette ” or glass tube, introduced into the
swollen gland, is only another instance of the devotion
of the medical profession.
For small-pox, hydrophobia, diphtheria, and cholera,
the preventive fluid is obtained by the action of the
bacillus upon a living animal.
The plague vaccine is obtained differently. The
bacillus is grown in a nutrient broth, obtained and
purified by many and elaborate devices. They are
bewildering in their variety and the infinite care
bestowed upon each. The caste or sect prejudices of
the people of India are well-known, and the most
scrupulous care is always taken by the Government to
avoid encroaching upon them in the slightest degree in
any movement for the public good. It would no
doubt be simpler to make the strong meat essence
required for the cultivation of the bacillus from beef.
But this, involving bovine destruction, would never do.