Elizabeth Sarfenet lived as a dairymaid at Newpark farm, in this
parish. All the cows and the servants employed in milking had the
cow-pox; but this woman, though she had several sores upon her
fingers, felt no tumours in the axillae, nor any general
indisposition. On being afterwards casually exposed to variolous
infection, she had the smallpox in a mild way. Hannah Pick,
another of the dairymaids who was a fellow-servant with Elizabeth
Sarfenet when the distemper broke out at the farm, was, at the
same time, infected; but this young woman had not only sores upon
her hands, but felt herself also much indisposed for a day or
two. After this, I made several attempts to give her the smallpox
by inoculation, but they all proved fruitless. From the former
case then we see that the animal economy is subject to the same
laws in one disease as the other.
The following case, which has very lately occurred, renders it
highly probable that not only the heels of the horse, but other
parts of the body of that animal, are capable of generating the
virus which produces the cow-pox.
An extensive inflammation of the erysipelatous kind appeared
without any apparent cause upon the upper part of the thigh of a
sucking colt, the property of Mr. Millet, a farmer at
Rockhampton, a village near Berkeley. The inflammation continued
several weeks, and at length terminated in the formation of three
or four small abscesses. The inflamed parts were fomented, and
dressings were applied by some of the same persons who were
employed in milking the cows. The number of cows milked was
twenty-four, and the whole of them had the cow-pox. The milkers,
consisting of the farmer's wife, a man and a maidservant, were
infected by the cows. The man-servant had previously gone through
the smallpox, and felt but little of the cow-pox. The servant
maid had some years before been infected with the cow-pox, and
she also felt it now in a slight degree; but the farmer's wife,
who never had gone through either of the diseases, felt its
effects very severely.
That the disease produced upon the cows by the colt and from
thence conveyed to those who milked them was the TRUE and not the
SPURIOUS cow-pox, there can be scarcely any room for suspicion;
yet it would have been more completely satisfactory had the
effects of variolous matter been ascertained on the farmer's
wife, but there was a peculiarity in her situation which
prevented my making the experiment.
Thus far have I proceeded in an inquiry founded, as it must
appear, on the basis of experiment; in which, however, conjecture
has been occasionally admitted in order to present to persons
well situated for such discussions objects for a more minute
investigation. In the mean time I shall myself continue to
prosecute this inquiry, encouraged by the hope of its becoming
essentially beneficial to mankind.
II
FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOLA VACCINAE, OR COW-POX. 1799
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