IMMUNITY AND ANTITOXINS 2$ I 



vaccination, Pasteur's treatment of rabies, anti-cholera in- 

 oculation, and antitoxin inoculation. From all accounts, it 

 is to be feared that these four phases of artificial immunity 

 are hopelessly confused in the educated public mind. Nor 

 is this to be wondered at when we reflect upon the rapid 

 growth of the whole science of immunity, and upon the ever- 

 varying forms of nomenclature through which it has passed. 



Vaccination for Small-pox. In 1717 Lady Mary Wortley 

 Montagu * described the inoculation of small-pox as she had 

 seen it practised in Constantinople. So greatly was she im- 

 pressed with the efficacy of this process that she had her 

 own son inoculated there, and in 1721 Mr. Maitland, a sur- 

 geon, inoculated her daughter in London. This was the 

 first time inoculation was openly practised in England. 2 For 

 one hundred and twenty years small-pox inoculation (or 

 variolation, as it is more correctly termed) was practised in 

 England, until by Act of Parliament in 1840 it was pro- 

 hibited. 



There were different ways of performing variolation, but 

 the most approved method was similar to the modern system 

 of arm-to-arm vaccination, the arm being inoculated with a 

 lancet in one or more places with small-pox lymph instead 

 of, as now, with vaccine lymph. As a rule, only local re- 

 sults or a mild attack of small-pox followed, which prevented 

 an attack of natural small-pox. Its disadvantage is apparent 

 on the surface. It was a means of breeding small-pox, for 

 the inoculated cases were liable to create fresh centres of 

 infection. In 1796 Edward Jenner, who was a country 

 practitioner in Gloucestershire, observed that those persons 



1 The friend of Addison and Pope, who married Mr. Edward Wortley 

 Montagu in 1712, and on his appointment to the ambassadorship of the Porte 

 in 1716 went with him to Constantinople. They remained abroad for two 

 years, during which time Lady Wortley Montagu wrote her well-known Let- 

 ters to her sister the Countess of Mar, Pope, and others. 



2 Crookshank, History and Pathology of Vaccination. 



