Producción de vacunas en el antiguo Instituto Bacteriológico de Chile / Vaccine production at the ancient Bacteriological Institute of Chile

Se relata el nacimiento, auge y decadencia, de la producción de vacunas en el antiguo Instituto Bacteriológico de Chile, desde su fundación en 1929 hasta su fin en 1980, por boca de quien fuera por diecisiete años primero encargado de la fabricación de vacunas bacterianas y luego director de la institución. Las vicisitudes de la vacuna BCG, la introducción del toxoide tetánico, el fin de la vacuna antivariólica y el triunfo de vacuna antirrábica de Fuenzalida y Palacios, se narran a menudo con comentarios de quienes participaron en estos hechos.

The birth, rise and decline, of vaccine production at the Bacteriological Institute of Chile is recounted by mouth of who was for seventeen years first in charge of manufacturing and then director of the institution. The vicissitudes of the BCG vaccine, the introduction of tetanus toxoid, the end of smallpox vaccine, and the triumph of the rabies vaccine are often related with comments from those who participated in the events.

William Boog Leishman: parasitologist and politician.

Famous for the discovery of the parasite, Leishmania, named after him, and the invention of Leishman's stain, William Boog Leishman should perhaps be better known for his work in military and public health, particularly the prevention of typhoid. Leishman was a Medical Officer in the British Army from 1887 until his death in 1926. His early research was on diseases affecting troops posted to stations within the British Empire. He saw cases of Leishmaniasis while stationed in India, and was able to identify the causative organism from his detailed records of his observations. Leishman's most important contribution to public health, however, was his work with typhoid, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the army. Leishman planned experiments and the collection of data to demonstrate the efficacy of anti-typhoid inoculation and, using his considerable political skills, advocated the adoption of the vaccine. He planned for the inoculation of troops in an emergency so, when war broke out in 1914, the vaccine was available to save thousands of lives. Leishman's colleagues and mentors included Ronald Ross and Almroth Wright. Leishman was less outspoken than either Ross or Wright; this paper shows how the different contributions of the three men overlapped.

Typhoid transmission: a historical perspective on mathematical model development.

Mathematical models of typhoid transmission were first developed nearly half a century ago. To facilitate a better understanding of the historical development of this field, we reviewed mathematical models of typhoid and summarized their structures and limitations. Eleven models, published in 1971 to 2014, were reviewed. While models of typhoid vaccination are well developed, we highlight the need to better incorporate water, sanitation and hygiene interventions into models of typhoid and other foodborne and waterborne diseases. Mathematical modeling is a powerful tool to test and compare different intervention strategies which is important in the world of limited resources. By working collaboratively, epidemiologists and mathematicians should build better mathematical models of typhoid transmission, including pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions, which will be useful in epidemiological and public health practice.

What you don't know about vaccines can hurt you.

As physicians, we've all learned in detail about the science behind vaccinations, but I suspect few of us have been taught about the history of vaccinations. Sure, we all know that Dr. Jonas Salk developed the poliovirus vaccine, but I wasn't aware that he inoculated himself, his wife, and his three children with his then experimental vaccine. When our editorial committee decided to focus on vaccinations as our theme for this month's Greene County Medical Society's Journal, I perused the internet for interesting topics. I came across a fascinating website, historyofvaccines.org; this website is a project of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, touted as being the oldest professional medical organization in the United States. I credit the majority of the information in this article to the above website and the rest to the National Institutes of Health (nih.gov) website; I trust that the information is valid and true, based on the agencies behind these websites. Below are some interesting tidbits about vaccine preventable diseases that I found noteworthy to pass on to our readers.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930): Physician during the typhoid epidemic in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

When the Anglo-Boer War broke out in October 1899, Arthur Conan Doyle, a retired ophthalmologist, was already famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Motivated by patriotism and adventure, Doyle joined the medical staff of a private field hospital endowed by philanthropist John Langman (1846-1928). Langman Hospital opened in Bloemfontein, South Africa, at the height of that city's typhoid fever epidemic which raged from April to June 1900. There were nearly 5000 cases of typhoid and 1000 deaths but official statistics do not truly reflect the magnitude of the suffering. Doyle argued that the British Army had made a major mistake by not making antityphoid inoculation compulsory. Because of the new vaccine's side effects, 95% of the soldiers refused immunization. Despite his strong opinions, Doyle failed to press the issue of compulsory inoculation when he testified before two Royal Commissions investigating the medical and military management of the war in South Africa. One can only imagine how the army might have benefited from the new idea of prophylactic vaccination in preventive medicine if Doyle had not let these opportunities slip away. As a consequence, antityphoid inoculation was still voluntary when Great Britain entered World War I in August 1914.

[Pharmacologists in the camps In the Third Reich--part one]. / Farmakolodzy w obozach III Rzeszy--czesc pierwsza.

The outbreak of World War II is considered as the inception of the pharmacology of the III Reich. Hitler's soldiers are decimated on the front lines by malaria, typhoid, gas gangrene, they need efficient and easy accessible medicines. From now on German forces are engaged into pharmacology of war. Only augmentation of Fuehrer's army effectiveness is reckoned with. Research centers in the concentrations camps are being organized, prisoners are used as the human subject. In the investigations many noted and respected personages are involved. Dr. Helmut Vetter and Dr. Ding Erwing Schuler studied chemicals which may had potential use in the prevention and treatment of typhoid. Professor Eugen Haagen carried out experiments concerning the use of vaccines against typhoid. The latter, although sentenced to life imprisonment, he returned to research in 1952 as a result of the amnesty activities in the former West Germany, and then worked as a researcher. His studies were reflected in the book, and scientific publications. Professor. Eugen Haagen died of natural causes in 1972.

Professors Rudolf Weigl and Ludwik Hirszfeld--in the meanders of history.

The lives and scientific achievements of two outstanding Polish biologists - Professors Rudolf Weigl (1883-1957) and Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954) - are presented in the context of the social and political events before and after World War II. The main aim is to recall and emphasise the very modern studies conducted in the two decades between the wars in the Polish scientific centres of Lvov and Warsaw, and the resulting concepts which provided the basis for both the modern microbiological-parasitological experiments and the organisation of post-war teaching and research institutions in Poland. An attempt is made at analysing the effect of scientific paradigms from the boundary of the 19th and 20th centuries on the activity and attitudes of the two outstanding scientists. Their fates coincided in the dramatic war circumstances. Attention is drawn to human and extra-human factors which determined their very different fates in the last, post-war period of their lives. In August 1945 Prof. L. Hirszfeld moved from Lublin to Wroclaw where he became famous as the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Wroclaw University and the founder of the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences. At the same time the Weigl Institute in Lvov, world famous for production of the first anti-typhoid vaccine, was never reconstructed in the post-war Poland, and the full scientific potential of the vaccine's inventor remained unrealised in the university circles of Cracow and Poznan, where Weigl was Professsor of biology departments.

Doctor T. E. Woodward's legacy: from typhus to typhoid fever.

Dr. Theodore E. Woodward was one of the early giants of infectious diseases research who set the groundwork for the field. He was the first to evaluate vaccines against typhus, employing volunteers to test the effectiveness of the vaccines. This led to the evaluation of chloramphenicol for the treatment of rickettsial diseases and typhoid fever. Subsequently, he was influential in establishing a unique volunteer unit in Maryland in which a wide range of vaccines were evaluated.

Edward Almroth Wright.

Sixty years ago saw the passing of Edward Almroth Wright, Professor of Pathology at the Army Medical College between 1892 and 1902. Wright secured his place in the medical pantheon, and significant fame, with the discovery of an effective vaccine for typhoid in 1897. This article examine show he earned his place in medical history.

Fifty years of dysentery research at the Pécs University.

Károly Rauss was appointed as head of the Department of Public Health of the Elisabeth University of Pécs in 1946, Professor Rauss's carrier had started working with Professor Hugó Preisz in Budapest. During his residency years he was already appointed to the Department of Bacteriology chaired by Lovrekovics at the National Institute of Public Health. In this institution--as in all organizations affiliated with the Rockefeller Institute--the state of art diagnostic work together with research focusing on problems derived from everyday medical and public health practice was considered as to be of primary importance. Stimulated by this scientific environment Rauss's interest turned towards enteric pathogens. In cooperation with Lovrekovics he developed a typhoid vaccine containing a trichloracetic acid extract of the pathogen adsorbed to aluminum hydroxide. This vaccine was introduced in 1938 when ca. 6-8000 enteric fever cases were registered in Hungary annually. The vaccination, supported by the public health work concerning carriers, eventually lead to the eradication of the disease in Hungary.

[Typhoid vaccination yesterday and today]. / Die Typhus-Schutzimpfung gestern und heute.

Despite the early attempts to produce resistance against typhoid fever with parenteral vaccination by Pfeiffer and Kolle in 1896, and with oral vaccines by Carroll in 1904, it was not until the 1950s when typhoid vaccine efficacy was prospectively evaluated in both well-controlled field trials and human volunteer studies. Among the parenteral whole cell preparations the acetone-inactivated and heat-phenol-killed vaccines, respectively, demonstrating an efficacy of 60-90% for 3-5 years, have received most attention. Oral killed typhoid vaccines have enjoyed popularity for many years, but their effectiveness has never been proven under statistically and epidemiologically controlled conditions. More encouraging results were obtained with live oral vaccines produced from genetically defective, avirulent mutants. Investigations with streptomycin-dependent strains of Salmonella typhi were followed by studies of so-called galE mutants. One of such vaccine strains, labelled Ty 21a, proved to be more effective in volunteer studies than all previous vaccines, and promoted 95% resistance to clinical illness for three years in a field trial in Egypt. It has to be borne in mind, however, that immunity to typhoid fever is never absolute but depends on the dose of infection. This is important to be known by the vaccinee in order to avoid a wrong feeling of security which might result in negligence of personal and food hygiene.

Who introduced typhoid vaccination: Almroth Write or Richard Pfeiffer?

The British pathologist Almroth Wright generally is credited with the initiation of typhoid vaccination in 1896. His claims of priority were challenged as early as 1907 in favor of Richard Pfeiffer, a German bacteriologist and a student of Robert Koch. A review of the original literature of the 1890s and the early 1900s revealed that several groups were working on typhoid vaccine at the same time and that the credit for the initiation of typhoid vaccine studies should be shared by these two great researchers.