1870 Animal Vaccine Brought to US

The Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Title page of Martin's On Animal Vaccination, 1878

1870

Animal Vaccine Brought to U.S.

Boston physician Henry Austin Martin brought what he called true animal vaccine (material produced by inoculating a calf with cowpox lymph) to the United States. He described how he procured the material:

“…[M]y special agent [returned] from Paris with ample supplies of animal virus in tubes and on ivory points and squares of glass, collected and sealed by Professor Depaul in his presence, autograph directions from the same distinguishedsavant, and a full collection of pamphlets and other publications by Professor Depaul and others. My agent returned to Boston on the 23rd of September, 1870. I had secured the use of a farm on which was a herd of nearly fifty young bovine animals, and, on the very day of my agent’s return, I vaccinated three of these, on the next day two, and on till I had nearly exhausted my supply of virus in the vaccination of nine or ten animals….I was, of course, put in possession of ample supplies of animal lymph, and devoted myself to daily vaccinations of infants.”

Martin wrote that he obtained the vaccine from the 258th, 259th, and 260th animals vaccinated from Depaul’s series of animal vaccinated with the original Beaugency lymph (see the 1866 timeline entry). Martin reported success with the new method of producing vaccine, and went on to supply vaccine to vaccinators across the country until others began to serially vaccinate cows.

His work, however, came with a price: he wrote,

“It involved great labor and responsibility, considerable odium, large expenditure, and, in various ways, infinite annoyance, insult, and wrong; which, as it is now past forever, I can only endeavor to forget. As soon as my experiment had proved a success there were not wanting those who eagerly rushed into competition with me; this I expected, and hailed some of these competitors as fellow-workers in a field where much was to be done. I gave them every aid in my power freely, frankly, and fully, and was repaid by ingratitude, slander, and an effort, as futile as it was earnest and persistent, to rob me of the scrap of professional honor and reputation I had worked so hard to win and deserve, in introducing and establishing in America a system which has already conferred infinite though hardly fully appreciated blessings…" --Henry Austin Martin, On Animal Vaccination, 1878