Whether the matter, either from the cow or the horse, will affect
the sound skin of the human body, I cannot positively determine;
probably it will not, unless on those parts where the cuticle is
extremely thin, as on the lips, for example. I have known an
instance of a poor girl who produced an ulceration on her lip by
frequently holding her finger to her mouth to cool the raging of
a cow-pox sore by blowing upon it. The hands of the farmers'
servants here, from the nature of their employments, are
constantly exposed to those injuries which occasion abrasions of
the cuticle, to punctures from thorns, and such like accidents;
so that they are always in a state to feel the consequence of
exposure to infectious matter.
It is singular to observe that the cow--pox virus, although it
renders the constitution unsusceptible of the variolous, should
nevertheless, leave it unchanged with respect to its own action.
I have already produced an instance [Footnote: See Case IX.] to
point out this, and shall now corroborate it with another.
Elizabeth Wynne, who had the cow-pox in the year 1759, was
inoculated with variolous matter, without effect, in the year
1797, and again caught the cow-pox in the year 1798. When I saw
her, which was on the eighth day after she received the
infection, I found her affected with general lassitude,
shiverings, alternating with heat, coldness of the extremities,
and a quick and irregular pulse. These symptoms were preceded by
a pain in the axilla. On her hand was one large pustulous sore,
which resembled that delineated in Plate No. I. (Plate appears in
original.)
It is curious also to observe that the virus, which with respect
to its effects is undetermined and uncertain previously to its
passing from the horse through the medium of the cow, should then
not only become more active, but should invariably and completely
possess those specific properties which induce in the human
constitution symptoms similar to those of the variolous fever,
and effect in it that peculiar change which for ever renders it
unsusceptible of the variolous contagion.
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