Autovaccine

Autovaccine, or autogenous vaccine, represents a vaccine prepared from microbes isolated from the patient who is being vaccinated. Thus, autovaccines are contrasted with 'stock vaccines,' which consist of microbes analogous to those that cause the disease, but isolated from other cases of the same disease. The former (autovaccines) are naturally monovalent, while the latter are polyvalent. The concept of autovaccines derives from Wright's teaching on autoinoculation (see). Modern bacteriological methods show that microbes of the same genus, morphologically similar (e.g., various strains of pneumococci, meningococci, gonococci), may differ considerably in their antigenic and other biological properties: for example, an agglutinating serum for pneumococci of type I does not act on type II, and so on. Thus, autovaccines appear more reliable in terms of specific action on the organism for developing increased resistance to a given virus. Preparation of autovaccines requires a certain, sometimes prolonged time (3-4 days or more), which can delay treatment. Therefore, usually before preparing an autovaccine, a corresponding strain vaccine is used. Preparation of an autovaccine is done in the usual way from pure cultures of microbes that cause the given disease (see Bacteriological analysis). If the infection is caused by several microbes, each microbe is isolated separately, and from their mixture a polyvalent autovaccine is prepared. In some cases, it is recommended to use the entire infectious material as an autovaccine, converting it by means of dilution, heating, etc., into a vaccine [e.g., in the case of autosputo-terdashm (see) in the treatment of tuberculosis, bronchial asthma]. The application of autovaccines is practiced in the same doses and with the same time intervals as ordinary vaccines (see Vaccination).