40 Letter from Dr. Thornton on the Cow-Pox. 



The happy villagers now thronged to his lordship's do- 

 main; and it was a most pleading sight for me to see as- 

 sembled at Lowther in the steward's room, in the presence 

 of" his lordship, so many persons to whom I was about to 

 render the most essential service: at the same time I was 

 enabled to make the most decisive experiments respecting a 

 practice, which promised to be an epoch in the annals of 

 medicine; and I flatter myself that the importance of the 

 subject, and the present period of nngronnded alarm, will- 

 be a sufficient apology for my publishing here the scattered 

 observations I at that time made, and without the smallest 

 view to their publication. 



MEMORANDUMS. 



1. Mary Bryham, set. 20, is a good-looking well-grown 

 <rirl, of a very florid complexion, the daughter of a groom 

 of his lordship's, William Bryham, who has superintended 

 his lordship's stables upwards of forty-eight years. The 

 arm rose finely, pustuled and then scabbed, but there was 

 not the slightest constitutional aftcction. 



Observations on this case. — Having passed through the 

 vaccine disease (as far as regards the essential circumstance, 

 a proper pustule forming itself, and going through its re- 

 spective staocs, which occupies a space of from fifteen to 

 twenty davs^) I introduced her to where lay the wretched 

 family in the natural small-pox ; one child was hardly re- 

 covered, and a second was in a deplorable condition, blind, 

 and at that time dreadfully moaning. I shall never forget 

 the expression of alarm irianifestcd by the girl's counte- 

 nance, she having never seen this disease before. The 

 blackness had not quite wora off the face of one, a second 

 was at its height, and a third sickening; and if fear in- 

 creases the pre-disposition to take infection, there was-no 

 want of this here*, and with the utmost difficulty I could 



emitted most copously, the poisonous pus being exposed at that period 

 naked to the air, according to the accurate description of the faithful 

 Sydewliam. '• U.-que ad hunc diem" octavum a primo insuitu " pustu!;i;, 

 qiKU faciem ob'-ederant, la;ves ad tactum fucre at<:[ue rubra:, jam veruas- 

 pcriorus evidjiit (quod quidem primum est incipientis miturationis indi- 

 cium) et subalbids, paulatim insupcr i/<tTw« quendam lutcum, colore a 

 favo non abludentem, ciiomunt." ■ ' 



« Resides the horror of the scene, amtber cnusr might have confpired. 

 There lives in the same village alon;^ witli her, Ann -Roper, the daughter 

 of her mnt'-icr's sister, and this girl was so dreadfully fcarred by the 

 SM AtL-POX, th.it she was rendered, to use ihc vulgar phrase, a prtfi-d 

 frigbl; she was said before to have l)cen a /w!>iy lass, and I might add, 

 thushe has from the same cause a speck over her right eye, of which she 

 is blind. 



get 



