Dr. Ainslie on Small-Pox and Inoculation in Eastern Countries. 65 



With regard to the origin of the Jennerian disease, for so it ought perhaps 

 to be called, there has been not a little discussion. The Illyauts of Persia 

 say it is found upon their milch sheejJ. Dr. Jenner himself, in his tract 

 above cited, has traced it from the heels of the horse* to the nipple of the 

 cow, and from that to the hands of the dairy-maid. This notion met with 

 considerable opposition ; and many experiments were in consequence made 

 to ascertain whether the cow-pox could or could not be produced by the 

 matter of grease applied to the udder of the cow. Woodville, Coleman, 

 and others, attempted to bring the regular malady into action in this way, 

 and failed ; though it would appear that subsequent experiments by Dr. 

 Loy were attended with an opposite result ; and, from the factst adduced 

 by this last-mentioned gentleman, we are led to conclude that Dr. Jenner 

 was correct in his opinion ; and that a person who has been infected with the 

 disorder from a horse's heels, becomes equally unsusceptible of the small-pox 

 contagion as if he had had the common vaccine disease. From Dr. Loy's 

 conclusion we are induced to believe, that there are two kinds of grease 

 to which the horse is subject ; one merely local, the other attended with 

 constitutional and febrile symptoms ;% and that it is from the eruption which 

 accompanies the latter, only, that the fluid can be obtained which produces 

 the genuine cow-pox vesicle : and, in this way, some late writers have ac- 

 counted for the non-success of Dr. Woodville and others, who may not have 

 made choice of the proper disorder in the horse. Further investigation 

 might have been made, to put the point in question for ever at rest : though, 

 after all, it is perhaps of little consequence. To have found the cow-pox 

 producing fluid in the purest of all animals (the cow), ouglit surely to be 

 sufficient guarantee for our most confident repose. 



The discovery of vaccine inoculation in England naturally excited great 

 interest and curiosity amongst the inhabitants of other territories, and whilst 

 they admired and adopted it, they were not a little anxious to obtain, if 

 possible, the wonderful preservative, from the cows of their respective coun- 

 tries. Dr. Lewis Sacco of Milan, in his treatise on the cow-pox, informs us 

 that the cows of Lombardy are subject to this affection, and tliat it is con- 

 tagious in the herd. C. Favo, vaccine inoculation director, addressed a 



• See Dr. Jenner's Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, p. 6. 

 f Loy's Account of some Experiments on the Origin of the Cow-Pox, p. 20. 

 % See Annals of Medicine, vol. ii., p. 263. 



Vol. II. K 



