Rabies Vaccine, Human, Semple Type
- Caption:
- Rabies vaccine, human, phenol-killed Semple type, 14 5-mL doses. Exp. 5/14/1964.
- Description:
This vaccine was named for its developer, David Semple, MD (1856-1937), a British army officer in the Indian Medical Service. Semple, who was a protégé of British physician and typhoid vaccine developer Almroth Wright, MD, opened a Pasteur Institute in Kisauli, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas in 1900. His killed virus vaccine, developed in 1911, relied at first on the growth of rabies virus in the brains of rabbits. Later, Semple and others relied on the brains of infected sheep and goats. As with other nervous tissue vaccines, this vaccine, while generally effective, could cause significant neurological side effects. It remained the most commonly used rabies vaccine in the world until vaccines became available that were produced using duck embryos (late 1950s) and then cell culture techniques (1970s). Semple vaccine is currently used in only a few countries in Asia and Africa. The World Health Organization's position is that "the use of brain-tissue [rabies] vaccines should be discontinued." Rabies vaccine, human, phenol-killed Semple type, 14 5-mL doses. National Drug Company, US License 101, exp 5/14/1964. From a donation by Kitchen, James G., II, MD, Pocono Lake, PA. D. 1998.
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