A History of Science — Volume 4Williams, Henry Smith
History
A History of Science — Volume 4
Williams, Henry Smith
Science -- History
"There is a disease to which the horse, from his state of domestication,
is frequently subject," wrote Jenner, in his famous paper on
vaccination. "The farriers call it the grease. It is an inflammation and
swelling in the heel, accompanied at its commencement with small cracks
or fissures, from which issues a limpid fluid possessing properties of a
very peculiar kind. This fluid seems capable of generating a disease
in the human body (after it has undergone the modification I shall
presently speak of) which bears so strong a resemblance to small-pox
that I think it highly probable it may be the source of that disease.
"In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, and the office
of milking is performed indiscriminately by men and maid servants. One
of the former having been appointed to apply dressings to the heels of
a horse affected with the malady I have mentioned, and not paying due
attention to cleanliness, incautiously bears his part in milking the
cows with some particles of the infectious matter adhering to his
fingers. When this is the case it frequently 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 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 color somewhat approaching to livid, and are surrounded by an
inflammation. These pustules, unless a timely remedy be applied,
frequently degenerate into phagedenic ulcers, which prove extremely
troublesome. The animals become indisposed, and the secretion of milk is
much lessened. Inflamed spots now begin to appear on different parts
of the hands of the domestics employed in milking, and sometimes on the
wrists, which run on to suppuration, first assuming the appearance of
the small vesications produced by a burn. Most commonly they appear
about the joints of the fingers and at their extremities; but whatever
parts are affected, if the situation will admit the superficial
suppurations put on a circular form with their edges more elevated than
their centre and of a color distinctly approaching to blue. Absorption
takes place, and tumors appear in each axilla. The system becomes
affected, the pulse is quickened; shiverings, succeeded by heat, general
lassitude, and pains about the loins and limbs, with vomiting, come on.
The head is painful, and the patient is now and then even affected
with delirium. These symptoms, varying in their degrees of violence,
generally continue from one day to three or four, leaving ulcerated
sores about the hands which, from the sensibility of the parts, are very
troublesome and commonly heal slowly, frequently becoming phagedenic,
like those from which they sprang. During the progress of the disease
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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