150 CLASSICS OF MODERN SCIENCE 

 leaving ulcerated sores about the hands, which, from the sensibility 

 of the parts, are very troublesome, and commonly heal slowly, fre- 

 quently becoming phagedenic, like those from whence they sprung. 

 The lips, nostrils, eyelids, and other parts of the body, are sometimes 

 affected with sores ; but these evidently arise from their being need- 

 lessly rubbed or scratched with the patient's infected fingers. No 

 eruptions on the skin have followed the decline of the feverish symp- 

 toms in any instance that has come under my inspection, one only 

 excepted, and in this case a very few appeared on the arms : they 

 were very minute, of a vivid red colour, and soon died away without 

 advancing to maturation; so that I cannot determine whether they 

 had any connection with the preceding symptoms. 



Thus the disease makes its progress from the Horse to the nipple of 

 the Cow, and from the Cow to the Human Subject. 



Morbid matter of various kinds, when absorbed into the system, 

 may produce effects in some degree similar ; but what renders the 

 Cow-pox virus so extremely singular is, that the person who has been 

 thus affected is forever after secure from the infection of the Small- 

 pox; neither exposure to the variolous effluvia, nor the insertion of 

 the matter into the skin producing this distemper. 



[I shall now conclude this Inquiry with some general observations on 

 the subject, and on some others which are interwoven with it.] 



Although I presume it may be unnecessary to produce further tes- 

 timony in support of my assertion "that Cow-pox protects the human 

 constitution from the infection of the Small-pox," yet it affords me 

 considerable satisfaction to say that Lord Somerville, the president 

 of the Board of Agriculture, to whom this paper was shown by 

 Sir Joseph Banks, has found upon inquiry that the statements were 

 confirmed by the concurring testimony of Mr. Dolland, a surgeon, 

 who resides in a dairy country remote from this, in which these ob- 

 servations were made. With respect to the opinion adduced "that 

 the source of the infection is a pecuHar morbid matter arising in 

 the horse," although I have not been able to prove it from actual 

 experiments conducted immediately under my own eye, yet the evi- 

 dence I have adduced appears sufficient to establish it. 



