CHAPTER VIII.* 

 THE MANUFACTURE OF VACCINES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Preventive medicine depends to a considerable degree upon the 

 use of vaccines, antitoxins and other specific biological preparations. 

 Large quantities of diphtheria antitoxin and smallpox vaccine are annu- 

 ally distributed by various Boards of Health and commercial firms. It 

 is, therefore, of the greatest importance that all such products should be 

 prepared in the most careful manner and submitted to thorough tests 

 before being used by physicians and health officers. General biological 

 products, such as antitoxins, vaccines, tuberculins and all others which 

 are to be applied hypodermatically should be carefully tested for kind 

 and amount of preservative, purity and potency. 



On July i, 1902, by act of Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury, 

 through the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, was placed in 

 control of all manufacture and sale of viruses, sera, toxins, and analogous 

 products for human use. In order to manufacture and place such 

 products upon the inter-state market any individual or corporation 

 must secure a license from the Secretary of the Treasury through the 

 Surgeon General of the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital 

 Service. All candidates for such licenses must allow an official federal 

 inspector the privilege of examining their laboratories, including the 

 details of technic in the processes of manufacture, before securing 

 federal approval. At frequent intervals the Hygienic Laboratory pur- 

 chases samples of licensed products upon the open market and submits 

 them to careful tests. If the samples of any products are found to be 

 misrepresented as to potency or kind and amount of preservative, or if 

 contaminating organisms are present, the manufacturer is notified to re- 

 call from the market the products represented by the tested samples. 

 The federal control of the manufacture of vaccines, sera, toxins and 

 other biological products related to specific infectious diseases, has 



* Prepared by W. E. King. 



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