Original Vaccine Pock Institution} °ji 



were also exposed to the contact of persons ill of the small- 

 pox. In the evidence of experience above represented, we 

 should probably have confided without searching for further 

 facts to prove the efficacy of vaccination, if besides the 

 great number of asserted cases of small-pox subsequently to 

 vaccine innoeulation, many of which, on inquiry, were 

 found to be utterly unfounded, and others at least unsub- 

 stantiated, there had not appeared from time to time a case 

 so stated as to be undeniably the small- pox after the cow- 

 pock. Accordingly, in the summer of 1604, the alarm was 

 so great, especially from Mr. Goldson's temperate and judi- 

 cious pamphlet, that the medical establishment were re- 

 quired by some of the governors to again institute the trials 

 of re-inoculation. Sixty persons (chiefly those who had 

 been vaccinated at the earliest periods of the institution)- 

 were inoculated in the most efficaciously known circum- 

 stances for the taking effect of variolous infection ; viz. 

 inoculation at the bed-side, and in contact with patients ill 

 of the natural small-pox ; inserting matter of the pock in 

 the vesicle state; inoculating in an unusual number of 

 punctured parts ; of course always with recent and fluid 

 matter ; but without exciting, in a single instance, the 

 small-pox. By those who have read our printed statement* 

 of these trials, it may be recollected that the inquiry for 

 subjects was the means of furnishing still more evidence 

 than the cases reinoculated ; for four out of five families to 

 which children belonged who had been inoculated for the 

 cow-pock, refused to submit to the test proposed ; alleging 

 that it was useless, as they had been exposed in vain to the 

 influence of variolous effluvia after vaccine inoculation, by 

 living with persons ill of the small-pox. 



"A further considerable accession of evidence was obtained 

 by the inquiry made on this occasion, whether or not any 

 persons had taken the small-pox who had gone through the 

 cow -pock in a general inoculation of three parishes, as early 

 as 1790, under the direction of two members of our esta- 

 blishment. The result f was, that to the knowledge of the 



* Statement of Evidence of the Original Vaccine Pock Institution, 8vo. 

 Martin and L'utlull, 180-1. 

 ■\ txc itattfiiicnt oi' Evidence. 



various 



