154 Life of Dr. Jenner. 



knowledged writer on the small-pox, struggles hard to prove 

 that Galen had seen it ; but even he, with all his enthusiasm 

 for his master, was sadly puzzled to account for the un- 

 wonted brevity and inaccuracy of his description. This, we 

 think, is of itself decisive of the question ; but when we fur- 

 ther call to mind the recorded opinions of the best 'modern 

 writers who have devoted their attention to the history of 

 physic, we mean Friend and Mead, we confess we have no 

 hesitation whatever on the subject. We regret that Dr. 

 Baron should have supported this side of the question^ as 

 by some it may be considered (however undeservedly) as an 

 impeachment of the general accuracy of Dr. Jenner's views. 



The first notices of a disease which exhibits the well- 

 marked features of small-pox, are to be met with in the 

 historical writings of Procopius, who flourished during the 

 reign of Justinian the First. The obscurity of its origin, 

 the difficulty of its cure, the universality of its devasta- 

 tions, and above all, the complete immunity from second 

 attacks, bespeaks this epidemic to have been truly small- 

 pox. It began A.'D. 544, and was reported to have been 

 brought to Constantinople from ^Ethiopia. This corre- 

 sponds closely with the era commonly assigned in medical 

 books to the first appearance of small-pox; viz., A.D. 

 568, when the Abyssinian army, under Abrahah the viceroy, 

 besieged Mecca. Without going, therefore, deeply into his- 

 toric details of little general interest, we may say that small- 

 pox first appeared in the East about the middle of the sixth 

 century. 



2. The next topic which we have set down for considera- 

 tion, is, the common origin of human and epizootic maladies. 

 This curious but uninviting branch of medical science was a 

 favourite subject of speculation with Dr. Jenner ; and, ac- 

 cordingly, repeated allusions are made to it in the work 

 before us. In the first volume of the Transactions of the 

 Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, there is a 

 paper by Dr. Jenner, on the distemper in dogs, a contagious 

 disease not communicable to man. There are certain other 

 epidemic maladies, however, which affect equally man and 

 the brute creation, of which the most important is, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Jenner, that which in its most malignant form we 

 call small-pox, and in its milder forms chicken-pox, swine-pox, 

 and cow-pox. It is, undoubtedly, a matter, not of mere 

 curiosity, but of serious reflection, that in their nomenclature 

 of certain diseases, the vulgar seem to have acknowledged this 

 doctrine of a common origin to human and epizootic epide- 



