[Smallpox vaccination--Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome (author's transl)].

A fatal acute meningococcal sepsis (Waterhouse-Friderchsen syndrome) appearing 25 days after smallpox vaccination (re-vaccination) on military service is reported. In order to assume a causal connection between the vaccination reaction and the acute infectious complication on atypically long "unspecific negative phase" after the vaccination is postulated. The morphological findings at the vaccination pustule, which shows the same changes as a first vaccination, also support a pathological post-vaccinal course. In consideration of these observations, revaccination after 20 years is apparently a risk.