126 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



Protective Vaccine against Plague. 



Haffkine's protective vaccine was first used on 

 man in January, 1897. It is a devitalised vaccine : 

 the bacillus pestis is grown in sterilised broth, and 

 then is killed by heating: and the fluid, with a 

 trace of carbolic added, is put up in hermetically 

 sealed phials : 



" In popularising the plague prophylactic, the 

 one difficulty that has to be fought against consists 

 in overcoming the popular idea that it is the living 

 virus of plague that is injected. Medical science 

 has to contend sometimes, even in England, against 

 credulous readiness to believe evil of others. What 

 it has to contend with in India, may be judged of 

 by the fact that, when inoculation against plague 

 was started in the Punjab, it was popularly believed 

 that the doctors were being sent round to propagate 

 plague, in order that human livers might be avail- 

 able, with which to make a potent drug that could 

 renew the youth of the Empress, whose Diamond 

 Jubilee had recently been celebrated ! 



" Yet, in spite of such ideas, the total demand 

 for the prophylactic continues slowly to increase ; 

 its protective power is found to be so marked, 

 wherever it is put to a practical test."- -Bannerman. 



Haffkine, having proved on rabbits, past all 

 possibility of doubt, the efficacy of his vaccine, 

 inoculated himself, on January 10, 1897, with a 

 fourfold dose: then Colonel Hatch, Principal of 



