588 
COMPARATIVE MERITS OF VACCINATION. 
contains an excess of ferric chloride, which, together with 
this gas, renders it a most useful and efficient antiseptic.” 
—Eds. 
THE COMPARATIVE MERITS OF ANIMAL VACCINATION 
AND ARM-TO-ARM VACCINATION. 
By P. M. Braidwood, M.D. 
Animal vaccination, like many other important subjects, 
has hitherto excited only transient interest. During the 
meeting of the British Medical Association in Leeds (28th 
July 1869, British Medical Journal, 4th September 1869), two 
papers were presented on this question, both of them ad¬ 
vocating strongly the protection against smallpox afforded 
thus, and each based on the personal experience of its author. 
Since that date reference has been made in the medical and 
lay press of this country, both by correspondence and other¬ 
wise, to the success of animal vaccination, more especially in 
Belgium. Nor have the authorities in this country, who 
are responsible for our national vaccination arrangements, 
been indifferent, seeing that since the above date the Privy 
Council Reports contain the results of an investigation into 
this question by one of its medical officers. Still matters re¬ 
main in statu quo , the arm-to-arm method (termed by some 
the Jennerian method) is the generally practised and author¬ 
itatively approved procedure. In the Brit, and For. Med. 
Chirur. Review, April 1870, I stated in an article entitled 
“ Animal vaccination” the special advantages which seemed 
to me possessed by te heifer lymph.” In the following para¬ 
graphs my desire is to draw attention to a pamphlet recently 
published by Dr. Martin of Boston, who has had extensive 
experience of animal vaccination, and is an ardent advocate 
of this procedure, and to refer to the debate on vaccination 
recently held (22nd May) before the Metropolitan Counties 
Branch of the British Medical Association, and reported in 
the British Medical Journal of 22nd June 1878. 
The brochure before us* originated with the appointment in 
1876 by the American Medical Association of a committee “to 
investigate and report upon animal vaccination.” Dr. Martin, 
chairman of this committee, assumes ct entire and undivided 
responsibility” for all the statements contained in this report, 
seeing he was unable by distance of residence to submit the 
report to the other members of committee. After some pre- 
* ‘ Oji Animal Vaccination/ by H. A. Martin, M.D., Boston, 1878, 
