424 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



of the fingers and at their extremities; but whatever parts are af- 

 fected, if the situation will admit, these superficial suppurations put 

 on a circular form, with their edges more elevated than their center, 

 and of a colour distantly approaching to blue. Absorption takes 

 place, and tumours appear in each, axilla. The system becomes 

 affected, the pulse is quickened ; shivering, succeeded by heat, general 

 lassitude and pains about the loins and limbs, with vomiting, come on. 

 The head is painful, and the patient is now and then affected with 

 delirium. These symptoms, varying in their degrees of violence, 

 generally continue from one day to three or four, leaving ulcerated 

 sores about the hands, which, from the sensibility of the parts, are 

 very troublesome, and commonly heal slowly, frequently becoming 

 phagedenic, like those from whence they sprung. The lips, nostrils, 

 eyelids, and other parts of the body, are somtimes affected with sores ; 

 but these evidently arise from their being heedlessly rubbed or 

 scratched with the patient's infected fingers. No eruptions on the 

 skin have followed the decline of the feverish symptoms in any in- 

 stance that has come under my inspection, one only excepted, and in 

 his case a very few appeared on the arms : they were very minute, of 

 a vivid red colour, and soon died away without advancing to matura- 

 tion ; so that I cannot determine whether they had any connection 

 with the preceding symptoms. 



Thus the disease makes its progress from the Horse (as I conceive) 

 to the nipple of the Cow, and from the Cow to the Human Subject. 



Morbid matter of various kinds, when absorbed into the system, 

 may produce effects in some degree similar; but what renders the 

 Cow Pox virus so extremely singular, is, that the person who has 

 been thus affected is forever after secure from the infection of the 

 Small Pox ; neither exposure to the variolous effluvia, nor the insertion 

 of the matter into the skin, producing this distemper. 



In support of so extraordinary a fact, I shall lay before my reader 

 a great number of instances : but first it is necessary to observe, that 

 pustulous sores frequently appear spontaneously on the nipples of 

 the cows, and instances have occurred, though very rarely, of the 

 hands of the servants employed in milking being affected with sores 

 in consequence, and even of their feeling an indisposition from ab- 

 sorption. These pustules are of a much milder nature than those 

 which arise from that contagion which constitutes the true Cow Pox. 

 They are always free from the bluish or livid tint so conspicuous in 



