Edward Jenner

“ It is an excess in the number of pustules which we chiefly dread in the Small-pox; but, in the Cow-pox, no pustules appear, nor does it seem possible for the contagious matter to produce the disease from effluvia, or by any other means than contact, and that probably not simply between the virus and the cuticle; so that a single individual in a family [Pg 68] might at any time receive it without the risk of infecting the rest, or of spreading a distemper that fills a country with terror. ”

“ It was the doctor's practice to make as slight an incision as possible upon the skin, and there to lodge a thread saturated with the variolous matter. When his patients became indisposed, agreeably to the custom then prevailing, they were directed to go to bed and were kept moderately warm. Is it not probable then, that the success of the modern practice may depend more upon the method of invariably depositing the virus in or upon the skin, than on the subsequent treatment of the disease? ”

“ Indeed it becomes almost a criterion by which we can determine whether the infection will be received or not. It seems as if a change, which endures through life, had been produced in the action, or disposition to action, in the vessels of the skin; and it is remarkable too, that whether this change has been effected by the Small Pox, or the Cow Pox, that the disposition to sudden cuticular inflammation is the same on the application of variolous matter. ”

“ One of them, Hester Walkley, I attended with that disease when she lived in the service of a Farmer in the same village in the year 1782; but neither this woman, nor any other of the patients who had gone through the Cow Pox, received the variolous infection either from the arm or from mixing in the society of the other patients who were inoculated at the same time. This state of security proved a fortunate circumstance, as many of the poor women were at the same time in a state of pregnancy. ”

“ No erysipelas attends them, nor do they shew any phagedenic disposition as in the other case, but quickly terminate in a scab without creating any apparent disorder in the Cow. This complaint appears at various seasons of the year, but most commonly in the Spring, when the Cows are first taken from their winter food and fed with grass. It is very apt to appear also when they are suckling their young. But this disease is not to be considered as similar in any respect to that of which I am treating, as it is incapable of producing any specific effects on the human Constitution. ”

“ And, from a consideration of the change which the infectious matter undergoes from producing a disease on the cow, may we not conceive that many contagious diseases, now prevalent among us, may owe their present appearance not to a simple, but to a compound origin? ”

“ I have been informed from respectable authority that in Ireland, although dairies abound in many parts of the Island, the disease is entirely unknown. The reason seems obvious. The business of the dairy is conducted by women only. Were the meanest vassal among the men, employed there as a milker at a dairy, he would feel his situation unpleasant beyond all endurance. ”

“ It is a fact so well known among our Dairy Farmers, that those who have had the Small Pox either escape the Cow Pox or are disposed to have it slightly; that as soon as the complaint shews itself among the cattle, assistants are procured, if possible, who are thus rendered less susceptible of it, otherwise the business of the farm could scarcely go forward. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact, and well known to many, that we are frequently foiled in our endeavours to communicate the Small Pox by inoculation to blacksmiths, who in the country are farriers. They often, as in the above instance, either resist the contagion entirely, or have the disease anomalously. ”

“ The active quality of the virus from the horses' heels is greatly increased after it has acted on the nipples of the cow, as it rarely happens that the [Pg 48] horse affects his dresser with sores, and as rarely that a milk-maid escapes the infection when she milks infected cows. It is most active at the commencement of the disease, even before it has acquired a pus-like appearance ”

“ When this is the case, it commonly happens that a disease is communicated to the Cows, and from the Cows to the Dairy-maids, which spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and domestics feel its unpleasant consequences. This disease has obtained the name of the Cow Pox. It appears on the nipples of the Cows in the form of irregular pustules. At their first appearance they are commonly of a palish blue, or rather of a colour somewhat approaching to livid, and are surrounded by an erysipelatous inflammation. ”

“ As it is not the identical matter inserted which is absorbed into the constitution, but that which is, by some peculiar process in the animal economy, generated by it, is it not probable that different parts of the human body may prepare or modify the virus differently? ”

“ In the present age of scientific investigation, it is remarkable that a disease of so peculiar a nature as the Cow Pox, which has appeared in this and some of the neighbouring counties for such a series of years, should so long have escaped particular attention. ”

“ A young woman who had the Cow-pox to a great extent, several sores which maturated having appeared on the hands and wrists, slept in the same bed with a fellow-dairy maid who never had been infected with either the Cow-pox or the Small-pox, but no indisposition followed. ”

“ A mare, the property of a person who keeps a dairy in a neighbouring parish, began to have sore heels the latter end of the month of February 1798, which were occasionally washed by the servant men of the farm, Thomas Virgoe, William Wherret, and William Haynes, who in consequence became affected with sores in their hands, followed by inflamed lymphatic glands in the arms and axillæ, shiverings succeeded by heat, lassitude and general pains in the limbs. A single paroxysm terminated the disease ”

“ February the 13th, 1797, I availed myself of an opportunity of inoculating William Rodway, the servant man above alluded to. Variolous matter was inserted into both his arms; in the right by means of superficial incisions, and into the left by slight punctures into the cutis. ”

“ HANNAH EXCELL an healthy girl of seven years old, and one of the patients above mentioned, received the [Pg 40] infection from the insertion of the virus under the cuticle of the arm in three distinct points. The pustules which arose in consequence, so much resembled, on the 12th day, those appearing from the insertion of variolous matter, that an experienced Inoculator would scarcely have discovered a shade of difference at that period. ”

“ All of them had sores upon their hands, and some degree of general indisposition, preceded by pains and tumours in the axillæ: but there was no comparison in the severity of the disease as it was felt by the servant man, who had escaped the Small Pox, and by those of the family who had not, for, while he was confined to his bed, they were able, without much inconvenience, to follow their ordinary business. ”

“ JAMES COLE, a Farmer in this parish, had a disease from the same source as related in the preceding case, and some years after was inoculated with variolous matter. He had a little pain in the axilla, and felt a slight indisposition for three or four hours. A few eruptions shewed themselves on the forehead, but they very soon disappeared without advancing to maturation. ”

“ They who attend sick cattle in this country find a speedy remedy for stopping the progress of this complaint in those applications which act chemically upon the morbid matter, such as the solutions of the Vitriolum Zinci, the Vitriolum Cupri, &c. ”

“ It is very easy to procure pus from old sores on the heels of horses. This I have often inserted into scratches made with a lancet, on the sound nipples of cows, and have seen no other effects from it than simple inflammation.
2: See Case IX.
3: My friend Dr. Hicks, of Bristol, who during the prevalence of this distemper was resident at Gloucester, and Physician to the Hospital there, (where it was seen soon after its first appearance in this country) had opportunities of making numerous observations upon it, which it is his intention to communicate to the Public. ”