142 Life of Dr. Jenner. 



sented, not less sublime than when the angel of the Lord 

 stayed the pestilence from the people of Israel. 



The private and public life of the man who thus enlarged 

 the bounds of human knowledge, and circumscribed the 

 limits of human suffering, must possess interest with all 

 classes of readers, and that of no common kind ; and, in this 

 assurance, we enter on the review of the work before us. It 

 has every claim upon our attention. Dr. Baron was for 

 many years the intimate friend and companion of Dr. Jenner. 

 The whole of his notes and correspondence was unreservedly 

 placed by the executors in Dr. Baron's hands. Bred in the 

 same profession, and zealous in the same cause which occu- 

 pied the time and the thoughts of Jenner, Dr. Baron was 

 certainly the fittest man to whom the task could have been 

 intrusted of delineating his character and opinions. The 

 manner in which that task has been executed demands, in 

 the outset, our warmest approbation. No pains have been 

 spared to collect information. No marks of hurry are per- 

 ceptible in the filling up of details. Although the portion of 

 the work dedicated to abstruse medical discussions may per- 

 haps prove irksome to the general reader, and will certainly 

 appear to all out of fair proportion to the strictly biographi- 

 cal part, yet it would have been difficult for the author, in 

 any other way, to have elucidated fully the doctrines and 

 practice which it was the great object of Dr. Jenner's life to 

 inculcate. It is to be regretted that the work, in its present 

 state, is imperfect. Another volume, probably of equal 

 size, will be required to complete it. The present gives us 

 only the early history of Jenner, and the five first years of 

 vaccination. It closes at the most brilliant epoch of Jenner's 

 life, the very zenith of his career — Autumn, 1803 ; when his 

 name had become known to the remotest corners of the 

 earth, and when, from foreign countries, he was receiving- 

 every mark of honourable distinction, and reaping, in his 

 own, a rich harvest of professional reputation, with the more 

 substantial benefit of ten thousand pounds, granted by par- 

 liament. The reasons which the author adduces for publish- 

 ing the first, without waiting for the completion of the second 

 part, are such as must command our assent ; — an earnest hope, 

 that a more perfect acquaintance with the views of Jenner 

 may restore, and even increase, public confidence in the 

 virtues of cow-pox ; and the feeling, that his own profes- 

 sional avocations, and the disarranged state of the volumin- 

 ous documents which he has in his possession, will prevent 

 him, for some time to come, from completing the arduous 

 duty which he has undertaken. 



