EDWARD JENNER 155 



record. Our oldest farmers were not unacquainted with it in their 

 earliest days, when it appeared among their farms without any devia- 

 tion from the phenomena which it now exhibits. Its connection with 

 the Small-pox seems to have been unknown to them. Probably the 

 general introduction of inoculation first occasioned the discovery. 



Its rise in this country may not have been of very remote date, 

 as the practice of milking cows might formerly have been in the hands 

 of women only ; which I believe is the case now in some other dairy 

 countries, and consequently that the cows might not in former times 

 have been exposed to the contagious matter brought by the men 

 servants from the heels of horses. Indeed a knowledge of the source 

 of the infection is new in the minds of most of the farmers in this 

 neighbourhood, but it has at length produced good consequences ; and 

 it seems probable from the precautions they are now disposed to 

 adopt, that the appearance of the Cow-pox here may either be entirely 

 extinguished or become extremely rare. 



Should it be asked whether this investigation is a matter of mere 

 curiosity, or whether it tends to any beneficial purpose, I should 

 answer that, notwithstanding the happy eflfects of inoculation, with all 

 the improvements which the practice has received since its first intro- 

 duction into this country, it not very infrequently produces deformity 

 of the skin, and sometimes, under the best management, proves 

 fatal. 



These circumstances must naturally create in every instance some 

 degree of painful solicitude for its consequences. But as I have never 

 known fatal effects arise from the Cow-pox, even when impressed in 

 the most unfavourable manner, producing extensive inflammations and 

 suppurations on the hands ; and as it clearly appears that this disease 

 leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection 

 of the Small-pox, may we not infer that a mode of inoculation may be 

 introduced preferable to that at present adopted, especially among 

 those families which, from previous circumstances, we may judge to 

 be predisposed to have the disease unfavourably? It is an excess in 

 the number of pustules which we chiefly dread in the Small-pox ; but, 

 in the Cow-pox, no pustules appear, nor does it seem possible for the 

 contagious matter to produce the disease from effluvia, or by any other 

 means than contact, and that probably not simply between the virus 

 and the cuticle ; so that a single individual in a family might at any 



