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Über Encephalitis postvaccinalis
Author(s) -
LANGE CORNELIA DE
Publication year - 1948
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1948.tb03742.x
Subject(s) - infiltration (hvac) , smallpox , encephalitis , medicine , population , virus , vaccinia , virology , vaccination , stadium , pathology , biology , environmental health , biochemistry , physics , geometry , mathematics , gene , thermodynamics , recombinant dna
SUMMARY In May 1947 an epidemic of encephslitis postvaccinalis occurred in the Dutch province of Noord Brabant . The population had been vaccinated on a large scale on account of a case of smallpox in the neighbouring Belgian town of Luik . The author has investigated the brains of three children who died of encephalitis (after primo‐vaccination). One of the cases ran a lightning course. Post mortem only hyperemia of the brain was found and a slight infiltration of some vessel‐walls with uninuclear elements. This represents the first stadium of the process. As a second stadium one may regard a rarefication of the parencliyma round the bloodvessels with a slight infiltration with microglia and with cells somewhat larger with broader protoplasma than the microglial cells. In the third stadium this infiltration becomes more dense and there is demyelinisxtion. No communis opinio exists us to the fact whether the glinl reaction or the demyelinisation comes first. The author on account of her investigetion, inclines to the opinion, that it is the glial reaction. The histological pictures do not give any help in deciding the question, whether it is the vaccinia‐virus itself, which is the cause of the encephalitis, or whether a latent virus in the brain is activated by the vaccination or lastly if an antigen‐ antibody reaction exists. Study of the literature on encephalitis following vaccination against small‐pox proves that it is wrong to call the disease a leucoencephalitis, as in several cases the grey matter also has been severely damaged. Neither is the process always diffuse. Large territories may be spared even so that the histological pictures resemble those of sclerosis multiplex. On the other hand there arc no parts of the brain, which are spared in every case of encephalitis post vaccinalis.