An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae: A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow PoxJenner, Edward
Science
An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae: A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox
Jenner, Edward
Smallpox -- Vaccination -- Early works to 1800; Vaccination -- Early works to 1800; Vaccinia -- Early works to 1800
In order to ascertain whether the boy, after feeling so slight an
affection of the system from the Cow-pox virus, was secure from the
contagion of the Small-pox, he was inoculated the 1st of July
following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule.
Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both his arms,
and the matter was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. The
same appearances were observable on the arms as we commonly see when
a patient has had variolous matter applied, after having either the
Cow-pox or the Small-pox. Several months afterwards, he was again
inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was produced
on the constitution.
Here my researches were interrupted till the spring of the year 1798,
when from the wetness of the early part of the season, many of the
farmers' horses in this neighbourhood were affected with sore heels,
in consequence of which the Cow-pox broke out among several of our
dairies, which afforded me an opportunity of making further
observations upon this curious disease.
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 axillae, shiverings
succeeded by heat, lassitude and general pains in the limbs. A single
paroxysm terminated the disease; for within twenty-four hours they
were free from general indisposition, nothing remaining but the sores
on their hands. Haynes and Virgoe, who had gone through the Small-pox
from inoculation, described their feelings as very similar to those
which affected them on sickening with that malady. Wherret never had
had the Small-pox. Haynes was daily employed as one of the milkers at
the farm, and the disease began to shew itself among the cows about
ten days after he first assisted in washing the mare's heels. Their
nipples became sore in the usual way, with blueish pustules; but as
remedies were early applied they did not ulcerate to any extent.
[Footnote 1: From the sore on the hand of Sarah Nelmes.--See the
preceding case and the plate.]
_CASE XVIII._
JOHN BAKER, a child of five years old, was inoculated March 16, 1798,
with matter taken from a pustule on the hand of Thomas Virgoe, one of
the servants who had been infected from the mare's heels. He became
ill on the 6th day with symptoms similar to those excited by Cow-pox
matter. On the 8th day he was free from indisposition.
There was some variation in the appearance of the pustule on the arm.
Although it somewhat resembled a Small-pox pustule, yet its
similitude was not so conspicuous as when excited by matter from the
nipple of the cow, or when the matter has passed from thence through
the medium of the human subject.--(See Plate, No. 2.)
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