216 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvnr. 



ceptible to small-pox infection; besides which, even 

 those who most strongly uphold vaccination now admit 

 that its effects die out entirely in a few years some say 

 four or five, some ten so that these people who had 

 had cow-pox so long before were certainly not protected 

 by it from taking small-pox. Several other patients 

 were farriers or stable men who were infected by horse- 

 grease, not by cow-pox, and were also said to be insus- 

 ceptible to small-pox inoculation, though not so com- 

 pletely as those who had had cow-pox. The remainder 

 of .Tenner's cases were six children, from five to eight 

 years old, who were vaccinated, arid then inoculated a 

 few weeks or months afterward. These cases are fal- 

 lacious from two causes. In the first place, any remnant 

 of the effects of the vaccination (which were sometimes 

 severe), or the existence of scurvy, then very prevalent, 

 or of any other skin-disease, might prevent the test- 

 inoculation from producing any effect. 1 The other 



1 Professor Crooksliank, in his evidence before the Royal Commis- 

 sion (4th Report, Q. 11,729), quotes Dr. De Ha8n, a writer on Inocu- 

 lation, as saying: " Asthma, consumption, hectic or slow fever of 

 any kind, internal ulcers, obstructed glands, obstructions of the 

 viscera from fevers, scrofula, scurvy, itch, eruptions, local inflamma- 

 tions or pains of any kind, debility, suppressed or irregular menstru- 

 ation, chlorosis, jaundice, pregnancy, lues venerea< whether in the 

 parent or transmitted to the child, and a constitution under the 

 strong influence of mercury, prevented the operation." There is no 

 evidence that those who applied the so-called " variolous test" in the 

 early days of vaccination paid any attention to this long list of ail- 

 ments, many of which were very prevalent at the time, and which 

 would, in the opinion of De Ha6n, and of the English writer Sanders, 

 who quotes him, have prevented the action of the virus, and thus 

 rendered the "test" entirely fallacious. With such causes as these, 

 added to those already discussed, it becomes less difficult to under, 

 stand how it was that the alleged test was thought to prove the influ- 

 ence of the previous vaccination without really doing so. 



