Wishing to see the effects of the disease on an infant newly
born, my nephew, Mr. Henry Jenner, at my request, inserted the
vaccine virus into the arm of a child about twenty hours old. His
report to me is that the child went through the disease without
apparent illness, yet that it was found effectually to resist the
action of variolous matter with which it was subsequently
inoculated.
I have had an opportunity of trying the effects of the cow-pox
matter on a boy, who, the day preceding its insertion, sickened
with the measles. The eruption of the measles, attended with
cough, a little pain in the chest; and the usual symptoms
accompanying the disease, appeared on the third day and spread
all over him. The disease went through its course without any
deviation from its usual habits; and, notwithstanding this, the
cow-pox virus excited its common appearances, both on the arm and
on the constitution, without any febrile interruption; on the
sixth day there was a vesicle.
8th: Pain in the axilla, chilly, and affected with headache.
9th: Nearly well.
12th: The pustule spread to the size of a large split-pea, but
without any surrounding efflorescence. It soon afterwards
scabbed, and the boy recovered his general health rapidly. But it
should be observed that before it scabbed the efflorescence which
had suffered a temporary suspension advanced in the usual manner.
Here we see a deflation from the ordinary habits of the smallpox,
as it has been observed that the presence of the measles suspends
the action of the variolous matter.
The very general investigation that is now taking place, chiefly
through inoculation (and I again repeat my earnest hope that it
may be conducted with that calmness and moderation which should
ever accompany a philosophical research), must soon place the
vaccine disease in its just point of view. The result of all my
trials with the virus on the human subject has been uniform. In
every instance the patient who has felt its influence, has
completely lost the susceptibility for the variolous contagion;
and as these instances are now become numerous, I conceive that,
joined to the observations in the former part of this paper, they
sufficiently preclude me from the necessity of entering into
controversies with those who have circulated reports adverse to
my assertions, on no other evidence than what has been casually
collected.
III
A CONTINUATION OF FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE VARIOUS
VACCINES, OR COW-POX. 1800
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