ECZEMA VACCINATUM: ITS RELATION TO GENERALIZED VACCINIA

Abstract

Reports of cases of eczema vaccinatum in the American literature are relatively few, and the fact that this disease and generalized vaccinia are basically the same is not generally accepted. The vaccine virus used today is a smallpox virus that has been attenuated by many passages through calves, and Schamberg and Kolmer¹state that this attenuation is permanent and irreversible even by innumerable transfers. The virus in a case of variola is definitely disseminated by the blood stream, but that the vaccine virus is also disseminated in this manner is not universally recognized. Gins and his coworkers²demonstrated that the virus in an uncomplicated case of vaccinia was present in the throat on the third and fourth days after vaccination and then disappeared even before the take developed. They also showed that the virus could be found at about this time in the internal organs such as the