The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact ChaptersWhite, William
History
The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact Chapters
White, William
Vaccination
The rise, progress, and termination of the pustules created by
the virus were exactly that of the true Cowpox.
Nevertheless, wrote Woodville--
This virus which Dr. Jenner declared to be perfectly pure and
genuine was taken from the arm of an hospital patient who had 310
pustules, all of which suppurated.
Woodville also argued, that “Cowpox, as casually produced by
milking infected cows, differs considerably from that which is the
effect of inoculation”; which Jenner attested in saying--
Four or five servants were inoculated at a farm contiguous to
Berkeley last summer with matter just taken from an infected Cow.
A little inflammation appeared on all their arms, but died away
without producing a pustule; yet all these servants caught the
disease within a month afterwards from milking the infected Cows,
and some of them had it severely.[109]
Others maintained that the cowpox which saved milkmaids from
smallpox was a much severer affection than that induced by
Jenner’s lancet, and that it was folly to assume their equivalence.
There was force in the argument; for every one then knew how much
the issue of smallpox inoculation depended on the mode of its
performance. The infection when communicated through the skin was
usually much less severe than when communicated by incision; and
Jenner related how a country inoculator, who liked to “cut deep
enough to see a bit of fat,” was the death of his patients on every
side. The human body is of infinite delicacy and complexity, and we
are sure to find ourselves at fault when we deal with its mysteries
according to our crude and inanimate logic. It is by experiment and
not by syllogism that physiological truth is verified.
Whatever might be the perils, immediate or remote, of inoculation
with cowpox, it was not attended with smallpox eruption; and at
last it became manifest to Woodville himself, that the virus he had
used, and the virus he had distributed, which had produced such
eruption, was the virus of smallpox.
After much controversy and many experiments these conclusions were
arrived at--
1. That when a person was inoculated with smallpox and cowpox about
the same time, both inoculations proved effective. There was a
pustular eruption on the skin from the smallpox, and the cowpox
vesicle reached maturity in the usual number of days.
2. These effects took place, without much variation, in all cases
where the interval between the two inoculations did not exceed a
week; but--
3. When the smallpox matter was inserted on the ninth day after
the inoculation with cowpox, its action seemed to be wholly
precluded.[110]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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