Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Vaccine Containers

This illustration from the textbook Naika hiroku by Honma Sōken, physician of Mito domain, shows a bandage, a vaccination lancet, and two containers used for vaccines in Japan in the 1860s. The glass bottle on top was intended for storing dried scabs, whereas the tin was intended for fresh lymph or to dissolve ground-up scabs in water in preparation of vaccination. The author deemed both glass and tin containers as suitable for storing cowpox scabs. If sealed well, he estimated the virus to remain viable in them for twenty to thirty days.

For more detail on these and other containers, go to the pathway Long-Distance Transmission.

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