J^

M

140

OF THE VACCINE OR COW-POX.

I

observed, that " The benefits of inoculation" (of the small-pox')" cannot be extended to society by any other means than makingthe practice general. While it is confined to a few, it must provehurtful to the whole. By means of inoculation the contagion isspread, and is communicated to many who might otherwise neverhave had the d'sease. Accordingly it is found, that nearly thesame number" (nay more) " die of the small-pox now, than beforethe practice of inoculation was introduced."

A multitude of proofs might be adduced of the justice of our au-thor's assertions, and of the necessity of legislative interference inthis momentous business; but our limits confine us to the followingextract, from the monthly report of the prevailing diseases in aparticular part of London by an eminent physician.

"1 cannot here pass over a striking instance of the bad effectsarising from partial inoculation. A child was inoculated in Aprilwhose parents kept a shop in a court consisting of about twentyhouses. As the inhabitants repaired every day for necessary arti-cles to the source of infection, the consequence was, that sixteen ofthem were affected with the small-pox in the natural way within afortnight after the child's recovery, and four of them died of thedisease. ------ Vide Monthly Mag. May 1796, p. 326.

Having had occasion to regret many similar instances of thehavock made by this loathsome and destructive distemper, we readwith much satisfaction, which however was not unalloyed by a con-siderable portion of distrust, Dr. Jenner's account of the advantagesof the cow-pox inoculation over that of the small-pox. They arerepresented by this author to be, 1. Its uniform mildness; that oftwo thousand persons inoculated with the cow-pox, not one died,and therefore may be practised at all ages with safety.—2. That itis not communicable by effluvia, and therefore anypartof the familymay be infected without affecting the rest.- -3. It does not disfigurethe skin.—4. Requiring no medical attendance, it may be practis-ed by any intelligent person; and, lastly, Persons who have oncebeen affected with the cow-pox are thereby rendered incapable ofvariolous infection.

It was not, however, until we had seen several hundred patientsinoculated; until, as far as circumstances would possibly permit,we had traced the effect of the cow-pox; it was not until we wereassured by the late Dr. Woodville (whom we had known longerhan any governor of the Small-pox Hospital, and whose experienceW this subject carries the highest authority); it was not until DrW. assured us that he had communicated the vaccine disease to upwards of a thousand persons, who had afterwards been inoculatedwith variolous matter, and of whom none took the small-pox ; itwas not before this, that we recommended, as we now conscienti-ously do, the practice of vaccination.

The adversaries to that practice not only deny the mildness ofthis disease, and that it prevents the small-pox, but assert that it isdangerous and sometimes fatal. But the anti-vaccinists in generalsubstitute fictions for facts, and ironv for argument: such was the