1823.] On Vaccination. 



propagation of discontent. It was 

 Stephanus even, a Christian, who gave 

 the death-blow to Domitian, at the 

 instigation of Domitilla. Indeed Do- 

 mitian, by the execution of his Chris- 

 tian nephew, and heir-apparent, Fla- 

 vins Clemens, had attacked notmerely 

 the religious liberties, but the ambi- 

 tious hopes, of the Christians, and had 

 disappointed them of seating an em- 

 peror on the throne of the Roman 

 world. 



If it be clear, then, that Apollonius 

 was a Christian, a resident at Ephesus, 

 and of great weight in the Christian 

 church, his memory must have been 

 also preserved in the Christian eccle- 

 siastic records ; and he can be no 

 other than the A polios who succeeded 

 to St. Paul in the practical papacy of 

 the Christian church, and who was the 

 established bishop at Ephesus. This 

 ApoUos (the very name countenances 

 the suspicion of identity,) wrote the 

 canonical Epistle to the Hebrews; 

 and, after he became bishop of Ephe- 

 sus, took down there, in concert with 

 Timothy, the testimony of John the 

 Evangelist concerning Christ, and pre- 

 fixed to John's Gospel the proem, 

 which in fact only repeats the intro- 

 duction of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 



If there is any reas(m, from the nar- 

 rative of Philostratus, to suspect that 

 the life of Apollonius began in impos- 

 ture, certainly it attained, ultimately, 

 the rank of disinterested virtue. So 

 many memorials had been preserved 

 by Damis, respecting the harangues 

 and discourses of Apollonius previous 

 to his enrolment among the Christians, 

 and later circumstances involved him 

 in so many seditious transactions, that 

 it might well appear inexpedient to 

 the fathers of the church to give an 

 account of his Acts after their own 

 manner. They might rather wish him 

 to be claimed by the Pagans than by 

 themselves ; and this would account 

 for the actual state in which the docu- 

 ments descend to us concerning A pol- 

 ios, or Apollonius. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



THERE has lately been a common 

 complaint amongst families, that 

 have had their children vaccinated, 

 of so many unsuccessful attempts to 

 produce tlie disease, that it either ren- 

 ders them repugnant to it, or makes 

 them place lesi confidence in it than 



115 



they otherwise would do ; at th« same 

 time, it lessens their zeal for one of 

 the greatest blessings of modern dis- 

 covery. , 



It certainly is the case, that the 

 failures are so numerous, and so very 

 general, that I think it requires some 

 little exertion on the part of medical 

 men to discover the cause of so sin- 

 gular a deviation ; even in those cases 

 that do succeed, the disease seems to 

 be gradually losing its true character, 

 and assuming a more spurious form. 

 It does not seem at all probable, that 

 the idiosyncracy of people can have so 

 differed since its first introduction, as 

 to render them less susceptible of vac- 

 cination, when we find other diseases 

 affecting the present generation with 

 the same violence, and the same symp- 

 toms, as in the past age: even the 

 small-pox, which perhaps bears the 

 greatest analogy to the cow-pox, does 

 not seem at all changed in its charac- 

 ter, and would no doubt spread its 

 destructive influence with the same 

 malignancy as it has done heretofore, 

 were it not for the practice of vaccina- 

 tion. 



Medical men, finding themselves 

 disappointed in their attempts at vac- 

 cination, generally attribute their 

 failure to the matter being stale : but 

 this cannot always be the case, neither 

 would the complaint be so general. 

 Indeed it is not so ; for matter taken 

 from one arm, and immediately in- 

 serted into another, often either pro- 

 duces no disease at all, or very slight 

 symptoms of it. Many rest satisfied 

 with their children having the cow- 

 pox in this spurious manner, which, 

 perhaps, in some degree accounts for 

 many instances of small-pox occurring 

 after vaccination. 



Should any of your medical readers 

 suggest a remedy for this prevailing 

 complaint, it would be rendering a 

 service to his fellow-creatures. It 

 appears to me, that vaccination has 

 been gradually diminishing in its true 

 character ever since it was first taken 

 from the cow, and will, in the course 

 of time, entirely lose its effects, if not 

 renewed by applying to its original 

 source — the cow. Would not this, 

 then, soon remedy the present cTil, 

 and would it not restore to the prac- 

 tice of vaccination all its lost vigour? 

 Jan. 13, 1823; T. K. 



Abington-streel, Northampton. 



For 



