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The practice, however, of inoculating with the matter of
Cow.Pox, or Vaccination as it was subsequently called, may be
considered as dating from the publication of the ' Inquiry into the
Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae,' of Edward Jenner,
published in the summer of the year 1798. The practice rapidly
spread, and prevailed widely in this country and other parts of
Western Europe during the first quarter of the present century.
It was, beyond all question, so adopted in the genuine belief that
it afforded protection against Small.Pox. Two questions at once
present themselves. First, upon what was this belief founded;
and, secondly, does the history of Small.Pox mortality from the
time when the practice of vaccination became prevalent, support
the view that it has such a protective influence ?
Vaccinia or Cow.Pox is a disease affecting milch cows and
marked by an eruption on the udder and teats. The disease can
be communicated from the cow to man. Dairymen and maids
engaged in milking cows affected with Cow.Pox are apt to have
sores of a special kind on their hands or elsewhere, the development
of the sores being frequently accompanied by febrile
symptoms. There can be no doubt that, in a certain number of
cases at all events, such sores are the local manifestations of
Cow.Pox; the virus from the eruption on the cow being
introduced into some scratch or other imperfection in the skin of
the milker and there producing its local effects, accompanied more
or less by general symptoms.
In the treatise to which reference has been made Jenner
records in the first place a number (19) of cases in which a person
who had accidentally taken Cow.Pox from the cow, had never had
Small.Pox and appeared incapable of taking that disease; the
insusceptibility being shown on the one hand by the failure to
contract the disease after ample exposure to contagion, such as
nursing and attending to or even sleeping with persons suffering
from Small.Pox.
Jenner further recorded in the same treatise how he had, in