Life OfDw Jeniler. 153 



with the distinguished of the land, and government were well 

 disposed to accede to their wishes, but for some reason it was 

 thought unadvisable, and his body lies in the chancel of the 

 parisn church in Berkeley. 



We have now gone through the task which we first pro- 

 posed to ourselves, — that of giving a brief sketch of the 

 principal events in Dr. Jenner's life. It remains that we 

 offer a few criticisms on the different speculative topics dis- 

 cussed, often at great length, in Dr. Baron's work ; and for 

 the sake of, brevity, as well as perspicuity, we shall take 

 them up in the following order : — 1. The antiquity of small- 

 pox. 2. The common origin of human and epizootic mala- 

 dies ; the identity of cow-pox and small-pox ; and the equine 

 origin of the former. 3. The possibility of exterminating 

 small-pox. 4. The causes of vaccine failure. 



1. Of the antiquity of small-pox. — This is one of the 

 thorny points in medical literature, with which Dr. Baron 

 boldly grapples, and a whole chapter is devoted to its dis- 

 cussion. It is not made to appear, however, that the opi- 

 nions here delivered were really those of Dr. Jenner. We 

 would suggest, therefore, to the author, the propriety of 

 separating these details, in a subsequent edition, from the 

 body of the work, and of throwing them, with some others 

 of a similar kind, into an appendix. This will be a great 

 relief to the general reader, without impairing the value 

 of the work to the inquiring physician. Dr. Baron supports 

 the opinion of the late Dr. Willan, that the small-pox is a 

 disease of great antiquity, and that it is to be traced in the 

 earliest writings of the Hebrews and Greeks. He gives us 

 an abstract of the plague of Athens, as described by Thu- 

 cydides, and adds, ** in this quotation from the original, will 

 be found, if I mistake not, as accurate an account of the 

 leading symptoms of variola as could possibly be expected 

 from any historian not medical." With all deference, we 

 do think the author is mistaken here. We know of no dis- 

 ease, the prominent characters of which could be so easily 

 described by an unprofessional man, as small-pox. But it 

 is clear from what the historian says, that he watched the 

 symptoms of the complaint, not superficially, but very closely, 

 and he describes, in our judgment, with great accuracy, a 

 petechial typhus, or, perhaps, cynanche maligna. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Baron, small-pox was seen by Hippocrates, and 

 commented upon by Galen, but it requires a great stretch of 

 ingenuity to trace in their writings any of the peculiar fea- 

 tures of this disease. Rhazes, the Arabian, the first ac- 



