After the many fruitless attempts to give the smallpox to those
who had had the cow-pox, it did not appear necessary, nor was it
convenient to me, to inoculate the whole of those who had been
the subjects of these late trials; yet I thought it right to see
the effects of variolous matter on some of them, particularly
William Summers, the first of these patients who had been
infected with matter taken from the cow. He was, therefore,
inoculated with variolous matter from a fresh pustule; but, as in
the preceding cases, the system did not feel the effects of it in
the smallest degree. I had an opportunity also of having this boy
and William Pead inoculated by my nephew, Mr. Henry Jenner, whose
report to me is as follows: "I have inoculated Pead and Barge,
two of the boys whom you lately infected with the cow-pox. On the
second day the incisions were inflamed and there was a pale
inflammatory stain around them. On the third day these
appearances were still increasing and their arms itched
considerably. On the fourth day the inflammation was evidently
subsiding, and on the sixth day it was scarcely perceptible. No
symptom of indisposition followed.
"To convince myself that the variolous matter made use of was in
a perfect state I at the same time inoculated a patient with some
of it who never had gone through the cow-pox, and it produced the
smallpox in the usual regular manner."
These experiments afforded me much satisfaction; they proved that
the matter, in passing from one human subject to another, through
five gradations, lost none of its original properties, J. Barge
being the fifth who received the infection successively from
William Summers, the boy to whom it was communicated from the
cow.
I shall now conclude this inquiry with some general observations
on the subject, and on some others which are interwoven with it.
Although I presume it may be unnecessary to produce further
testimony in support of my assertion "that the cow--pox protects
the human constitution from the infection of the smallpox," yet
it affords me considerable satisfaction to say that Lord
Somerville, the President of the Board of Agriculture, to whom
this paper was shewn by Sir Joseph Banks, has found upon inquiry
that the statements were confirmed by the concurring testimony of
Mr. Dolland, a surgeon, who resides in a dairy country remote
from this, in which these observations were made. With respect to
the opinion adduced "that the source of the infection is a
peculiar morbid matter arising in the horse," although I have not
been able to prove it from actual experiments conducted
immediately under my own eye, yet the evidence I have adduced
appears sufficient to establish it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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