The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 6 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 6 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
The style of this pamphlet, as well as of others which succeeded it from
Jenner’s pen in the course of a few years, is remarkably modest, and
admirable in all respects, which probably contributed much to the early
favour it received. The facts were such as to defy contradiction, and
the conclusions so just and mature, that the experience of nearly forty
years has been able to add little more than its seal of confirmation to
them. The few errors that have been detected relate chiefly to the
degree of protection afforded by the cow-pox, which Jenner affirmed to
be perfect: it is now however believed to be incomplete, perhaps in
three instances out of every hundred; that small proportionate number
passing, in general after the lapse of some years, through a very mild
and modified small-pox, in which the per-centage of fatal cases is
certainly not more, and probably much less, than five; being not more
than three in 2000 of all vaccinated persons, while the rate of
mortality even in inoculated small-pox is one in fifty, or forty in
2000. It should be borne in mind that small-pox itself sometimes occurs
a second time even in a severe and fatal form, as in the case of Louis
XV. Some constitutional peculiarity is probably the occasion of both
these anomalies; and this supposition will also account for the
often-observed fact, that small-pox after vaccination commonly affects
several members of the same family almost simultaneously, thus giving an
appearance of failure in a proportion much greater than the truth.
Another position advanced by Jenner in this pamphlet is too remarkable
to be passed over. After stating his belief that the cow-pox originates
from the horse in the way already mentioned, he proceeds to suggest that
the small-pox may have been itself originally morbid matter of the same
kind, aggravated into a malignant and contagious form by accidental
circumstances. But this opinion, though plausible, is not considered by
any means as established.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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