Vaccination after exposure to Smallpox

Categories: Infectious Diseases

Vaccination as late as the second
day after known exposure to smallpox is believed to have prevented the

smallpox; vaccination the third day after exposure has rendered the

disease much milder than usual, and in a case in Iowa, vaccination on the

seventh or eighth day after exposure to smallpox ran a partial course and

was believed to have modified the attack of smallpox, which, however, it

did not wholly prevent. A recent ca e in Michigan was vaccinated three

days after exposure, as were also the wife, mother, and two children, both

under five years of age; all vaccinated again six days after the exposure.

The health officer reported as follows: "The results were gratifying.

During the first week of the eruption it was evidently aborting and

without doubt as the result of vaccination eight days before the eruption.

A complete and fine recovery. Certainly an aborted course, with scarcely a

mark left, and not another case in the above family, whom necessity

compelled to occupy the same house, the same rooms, continual contact with

the contagion, scores one more big credit mark for vaccination."