and the "Progrefs of the Vaccine Inoculation, 395 



tion to a practice of infinite moment to the comfort of the 

 whole human race, one might name with truth the inocu- 

 lation of the vaccine difeafe. When we read, in the work 

 no iced in our laft Number, the accounts of the fact of the 

 cow-pock being known ;<mong the country people, not only 

 in England, but in Ireland and Germany; and even fome 

 inftances of intentional inoculation., wc felt humiliation 

 from the notion of the human intellect excited on this oc- 

 casion. 1 Although, with partiality to our own country- 

 men, we may even rejoice to find, in the extracts before us, 

 inftinrM ofl Cquallv glaring overfight in other nations; yet 

 thefe further inftances, we mult- allow, afford 1 confirmation 

 of the humiliating notion juit mentioned. 



I. On the Antiquity of the Cow- Pock, and of its Inoculation 



Time immemorial in Germany. {From Annalen der &.ub~ 

 pocken-lmpjungj 



(No. 2, page 13?.). BucH-urpr, fcb. a<, TS02. 



"The following highly important document, and hitherto ' 

 the oldeft known in reg-irdto the' h'ltory of the cow-pock, 

 will, no doubt, be welcome to our readers, and particularly 

 to the friends of vaccin ition. 



" A weekly journal, entitled Allgemcine Unterhaltungen 9 

 for the year I/69, pnnted at Guttingen bv F. A.'Rofen- 

 bufch, with plates, contains a; learned ditfertation, by a 

 writer who calls himlelf ,■' An old houfekeeper,' without 

 mentioning the place of his abode, j on the difeafe among 

 the horned cattle ; of quotations from Livy ;' the mod re- 

 markable paflage in which is to the following purport: 

 c On this fubject, however, I will not venture to decide ; 

 but what chiefly excites my attention, Is the Circumllance 

 that fuch a plague was very conmon among men and tbefe 

 animals, which is not the cafe at prefent. I conceived that 

 there might be many difealies of this kind, and that perhaps 

 it was only foine inflammatory fever, accompanied with 

 eruption, which was often common to men and animals ; 

 and Livy, in one place, calls it exprefcly J'cahies. But it 

 afterwards occurred to me that it might be the well-known 

 cow-pock, not unknown in this country, (G mingen, no 

 doubt, where the journal was printed,) and which is ftill 

 infectious to the girls who milk cows, and to other perions 

 who have the care of thefe animals. It is true, indeed, that 

 few men or animals die of this difeafe ; but thofe attacked 

 by it may be exceedingly lick, and perhaps it is owing to the 

 coldnefs of our climate that iht poifon is not more violent. 

 I rauft, however, remark, that in this country (Gottingen) 



thofe 



