[Dr. Henri Marie Husson (1772-1853) and the introduction of the vaccine in Reims].

Abstract

Born in Reims, Dr H. M. Husson was appointed as the secretary for the Parisian Medical Committee for the Inoculation of the Vaccinia in March 1800. In September of the same year, he founded the first provincial Committee for Vaccination in Reims. At this occasion, he showed his colleagues the doctors Caque (Hôtel-Dieu hospital), Navier (General Hospital), Demanche, his father Jean Husson and Dr Duquénelle (surgeons at the hôtel-Dieu hospital), the techniques to vaccinate, to take off the "vaccination fluid", to preserve it and to inject it. He also tought them the various methods elaborated by the Committee to differentiate the real from the fake vaccinia, based on the looks and evolution of the lesions. As a tribute to his colleagues from Reims, to their original works and their efforts to spread the use of the vaccination, Husson dedicated to them his Historical and Medical Research on Vaccination, "as a display of his unalterable attachment and of his most distinguished consideration". Eleven years later, Husson vaccinated the King of Rome and, in 1839, he became the president of the French Medical Academy.