View report page

63
1796, inoculated a healthy boy of eight years of age in the arm
with Cow.Pox matter taken from a sore on the hand of a dairymaid
who had been infected with the disease by milking cows
suffering from Cow.Pox. He describes the appearances subsequently
presented by the wounds, and states that, six weeks
afterwards, the results of inoculating the boy with variolous matter
were those commonly seen to follow the inoculation of persons
who had previously had the Cow.Pox or the Small.Pox; that is
to say, the ' variolous test' showed the boy to be insusceptible
to Small.Pox. Some months afterwards the boy was again
inoculated, but no sensible effect was produced on the constitution.
Jenner then relates that subsequently, in the spring of 1798, he
inoculated a child, and obtained a similar result with matter taken
directly from the nipple of a cow infected with Cow.Pox; from
the pustule on the arm of this child he inoculated another, and
from this again several, and from one of these latter a fourth in
succession, and then a fifth. To three of these the 'variolous
test' was applied, and it is stated with the same results.
In January, 1799, Woodville, having found Cow.Pox to be
present in a 'dairy' at Gray's Inn Lane, inoculated seven
persons at the Small.Pox Hospital with matter from one of the
cows at the " dairy," and other persons with matter from sores on
a dairymaid employed at the same place, who had become infected
from the cows. From these cases he inoculated in succession
others at the Hospital, eventually to the number of many
hundreds, and thus established the stock of what has been spoken
of as " Woodville's lymph." Pearson also at the same time
occupied himself with the question of inoculation with the CowPox,
writing a pamphlet about it. Woodville and he distributed
to many persons in this country and abroad quantities of the
lymph from the Hospital; and this was the beginning of the more
general practice of vaccination, for Jenner's stock of lymph, the
results of which he had described in his treatise, had come
to an end.