VACCINATION 

 AGAINST SMALLPOX 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE 

 VARIOLA VACCINE, OR Cow-Pox. 1798 



THE deviation of man from the stage in which he was 

 originally placed by nature seems to have proved to 

 him a prolific source of diseases. From the love of 

 splendour, from the indulgences of luxury, and from his 

 fondness for amusement he has familiarised himself with 

 a great number of animals, which may not originally have 

 been intended for his associates. 



The wolf, disarmed of ferocity, is now pillowed in the 

 lady's lap. 1 The cat, the little tiger of our island, whose 

 natural home is the forest, is equally domesticated and 

 caressed. The cow, the hog, the sheep, and the horse, are 

 all, for a variety of purposes, brought under his care and 

 dominion. 



There is a disease to which the horse, from his state of 

 domestication, is frequently subject. The farriers have 

 called it the grease. It is an inflammation and swelling in 

 the heel, from which issues matter possessing properties of 

 a very peculiar kind, which seems capable of generating a 

 disease in the human body (after it has undergone the 

 modification which I shall presently speak of), which bears 

 so strong a resemblance to the smallpox that I think it 

 highly probable it may be the source of the disease. 



In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, 

 and the office of milking is performed indiscriminately by 



1 The latr \fr. John Hunter proved, by experiment*, that the dog is the 

 wolf in a degenerate state. 



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