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203
With a view to prove the truth of the theory that cow-pox
is the small-pox of the cow—Variolæ Vacciniæ—and also to
establish fresh lymph supplies, numerous attempts have been
made by several observers in various ways to infect bovine animals
with the virus of human small-pox. In the majority of the
experiments the results have been negative. In a few, when the
Small-Pox matter has been diligently rubbed into scarifications,
or denuded surfaces, or punctures, certain results have been
obtained which have been variously interpreted. The positive
results have generally been redness, tumidity, or papules at the
points of insertion. In some of the successful cases, appearances
approaching what may be described as vesicular have been
obtained, a few, indeed, have exhibited the physical appearances
of vaccine inoculated on the calf; such vaccine results have sometimes
appeared not at the points of insertion but at some distance
from them. In none of the experiments have the usual signs of
natural cow-pox been found to result.
Some of the cases in which vesicular results were obtained
are certainly open to the objection that under the circumstances
under which the experiments were made, there was the possibility,
and even the probability, that vaccine virus (accidentally
communicated) accounted for these results.
Matter obtained from the local products of such variolations
of animals, when inoculated on human beings, in the hands of
Chauveau and others, gave rise to small-pox, which proved to be
infectious. In the hands of others, matter taken from the local
results, even when these bore no resemblance to vaccine vesicles,
after serial inoculations on animals and human beings, approximated
so closely to the Vesicles of ordinary vaccination as to be
indistinguishable from them; in such cases there does not appear
to be any ground for believing that the communicated disease,
whatever its nature, is any longer infectious.
In order to obtain local results on human beings similar to
those of ordinary vaccination, by the application of matter derived