"Three children were inoculated with the vaccine matter you
obligingly sent me. On calling to look at their arms three days
after I was told that John Hodges, one of the three, had been
inoculated with the smallpox when a year old, and that he had a
full burthen, of which his face produced plentiful marks, a
circumstance I was not before made acquainted with. On the sixth
day the arm of the boy appeared as if inoculated with variolous
matter, but the pustule was rather more elevated. On the ninth
day he complained of violent pain in his head and back,
accompanied with vomiting and much fever. The next day he was
very well and went to work as usual. The punctured part began to
spread, and there was the areola around the inoculated part to a
considerable extent.
"As this is contrary to an assertion made in the Medical and
Physical Journal, No. 8, I thought it right to give you this
information, and remain,
"Dear sir, etc.,
"J. FEWSTER."
It appears, then, that the animal economy with regard to the
action of this virus is under the same laws as it is with respect
to the variolous virus, after previously feeling its influence,
as far as comparisons can be made between the two diseases.
Some striking instances of the power of the cow-pox in suspending
the progress of the smallpox after the patients had been several
days casually exposed to the infection have been laid before me
by Mr. Lyford, Surgeon, of Winchester, and my nephew, the Rev. G.
C Jenner. Mr. Lyford, after giving an account of his extensive
and successful practice in the vaccine inoculation in Hampshire,
writes as follows:
"The following case occurred to me a short time since, and may
probably be worth your notice. I was sent for to a patient with
the smallpox, and on inquiry found that five days previous to my
seeing him the eruption began to appear. During the whole of this
time two children who had not had the smallpox, were constantly
in the room with their father, and frequently on the bed with
him. The mother consulted me on the propriety of inoculating
them, but objected to my taking the matter from their father, as
he was subject to erysipelas. I advised her by all means to have
them inoculated at that time, as I could not procure any
variolous matter elsewhere. However, they were inoculated with
vaccine matter, but I cannot say I flattered myself with its
proving successful, as they had previously been so long and still
continued to be exposed to the variolous infection.
Notwithstanding this I was agreeably surprised to find the
vaccine disease advance and go through its regular course; and,
if I may be allowed the expression, to the total extinction of
the smallpox."
Mr. Jenner's cases were not less satisfactory. He writes as
follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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