Ferrán's Antituberculosis Vaccination
Physicians may recall the so-called Ferrán campaign, when in 1885 at the acme of a cholera epidemic, Jaime Ferrán, a physician from Catalonia, began to make in Alcira, Valencia, injections of vaccines or dead cultures of cholera germs. On that occasion, Alcira remained free from the epidemic that played havoc with the neighboring towns, and it has always been grateful to Ferrán In that campaign Spanish physicians were divided into two partisan groups. As soon as the epidemic was over, Ferrán isolated himself in his laboratory and began to concern himself with the prevention of tuberculosis. To this he has devoted himself since. He has now decided to submit his laboratory results to the fullest clinical investigation. To show the harmlessness of his new vaccine, he has repeatedly injected himself, his wife, his 30-month-old child, his relatives and his pupils. He has obtained a promise of the