The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915Various
Science
The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
While in London attending to the publication of his pamphlet,
Dr. Jenner called on the great surgeon Mr. Cline, and left some
cowpox virus with him for trial. Cline inoculated a young
tubercular patient with vaccinia and later with smallpox in no
less than three places. In due time this patient did not show a
sign of smallpox. So impressed was Cline with this remarkable
result that he wrote to Jenner thus: "I think the substitution
of cowpox poison for smallpox one of the greatest improvements
that has ever been made in medicine. The more I think on the
subject, the more I am impressed with its importance."
The word "vaccination" was coined by the French, so remarkable
for the aptness of their descriptive terms, and it has ever
since remained with us as a convenient expression for the
inoculation of vaccinia as protecting from variola.[4]
[4] It is certainly not necessary to point out that the
principle of vaccination has been one of wide application in
modern medicine. Our word "vaccine" testifies to this. A
vaccine is a liquid, the result of bacterial growth, injected
into a patient in order to render him immune from that
particular disease which is caused by sufficient infection with
the microorganisms in question, e. g., of typhoid fever or of
plague.
Dr. Jenner's views were now becoming known, and the critics and
the doubters had appeared: St. Thomas has always had a large
following. The most formidable of the early objectors was Dr.
Igenhouz, who had come to London to study inoculation for
variola, and had already inoculated, among other notable
persons, the Archduchess Theresa Elizabeth of Vienna. The
careless vaccinations of Doctors Pearson and Woodville at the
London Smallpox Hospital brought much apparent discredit on
Jenner's work. In all his early work Jenner used lymph obtained
directly from papules on the cow or calf, but Woodville in 1799
showed that excellent results could be got from arm-to-arm
vaccination. As this latter method is a very convenient one,
the technique was widely adopted. We have to remember that we
are speaking of a period about sixty years before Lister gave
to suffering humanity that other great gift, antisepsis: and so
many arms "went wrong," not because of being vaccinated, but
because the scratches were afterwards infected by the
microorganisms of dirt. Jenner knew well the difference between
the reaction of clean vaccination and that of an infected arm,
but a great many medical men of his time did not, and so he was
constantly plagued with reports of vaccinations "going wrong"
when it was septic infection of uncleansed skin that had
occurred. The explanation of these things by letter consumed a
very great deal of his valuable time. By the end of 1799 a
large number of persons had, however, been successfully
vaccinated. As one Pearson proved troublesome by starting an
institution for public vaccination on principles which Jenner
knew to be wrong, and as Jenner found himself virtually
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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