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VACCINATION, Symptoms

Categories: Infectious Diseases

At first a slight irritation at the place of
vaccination. The eruption appears on the third or fourth day as a reddish

pimple surrounded by a reddened surface. On the fifth or sixth day this

pimple becomes a vesicle with a depressed center and filled with clear

contents. It reaches its greatest size on the eighth day. By the tenth day

the contents are pus-like and the surrounding skin is more inflamed and

often quite painful.
These symptoms diminish, and by the end of the second

week the pustule has dried to a brownish scab, which falls off between the

twenty-first and twenty-fifth days, and leaves a depressed scar. Fever and

mild constitutional symptoms usually go with the eruption and may last

until about the eighth day.



Reliable lymph points should always be used. Clean the skin near the

insertion of the deltoid muscle on the arm, and with a clean (sterile)

knife or ivory point, a few scratches are made, deep enough to allow a

slight flow of liquid, but no bleeding. The vaccine virus moistened, if

dried on a point, is rubbed into the wound and allowed to dry. A piece of

sterile gauze, or a "shield," is used as a dressing. This shield can be

bought at any drug store. One vaccination may give immunity for ten to

twelve years, but it is better to be vaccinated every six years at least.



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