Précis théorico-pratique sur la vaccine, précédé d'une notice historique sur cette précieuse découverte, et suivi des dispositions administratives adoptées dans le Département du Nord, pour en assurer la propagation; avec figures coloriées

Lille: L. Danel, 1829. Octavo. Contemporary full leather binding, with gilt tooling and edges. Front endpaper with presentation inscription from author to colleague. Illustrated with coloured engraving as frontispiece, and three samples of administrative forms at rear. Contents: 74 pages; some foxing. A fascinating treatise from J.-T. Lefebure, then Secretary General of the Comité Central de Vaccine du Département du Nord (centred upon Lille); illustrative of the official rhetoric called-for during the second generation of the vaccination movement. Following a detailed history of the first two decades of smallpox vaccination, with impressive international scope, Lefebure responds specifically to the anti-vax sentiments that had been bolstered by a series of fresh smallpox outbreaks in Paris (1821-23) and Lille (1824, 1827). To explain how the virus could continue to spread amongst a vaccinated population, Lefebure emphasized the critical significance of standardization—in both the administration and preservation of the vaccine—so as to introduce a categorial distinction between the phenomena of true and false vaccination. Regarding the latter, Lefebure offers his readers a useful coloured engraving, which visualizes the differences that can be observed in the lesion site of both successful and unsuccessful vaccinations, along with tables of differential symptoms—to help them identify when their inoculation process was perhaps incomplete. Lefebure concludes with the 27 articles of legislation that were adopted by the Département du Nord in 1828, with the aim of further standardizing the vaccination profession/industry. Scarce, with only 3 OCLC records located in North America (Yale, NLM, Michigan).