VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX 155 



those from whence they sprung. The lips, nostrils, eyelids, 

 and other parts of the body are sometimes 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 instance that has come under my 

 inspection, one only excepted, and in this case a very few 

 appeared on the arms: they were very minute, of a vivid 

 red colour, and soon died away without advancing to matur- 

 ation; so that I cannot determine whether they had any 

 connection with the preceding symptoms. 



Thus the disease makes its progress from the horse 8 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 smallpox; 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.* 



CASE I. Joseph Merret, now an under gardener to the 

 Earl of Berkeley, lived as a servant with a farmer near this 

 place in the year 1770, and occasionally assisted in milking 

 his master's cows. Several horses belonging to the farm 



Jenner*s conclusion that " grease ** and cow-pox were the same disease 

 has since been proved erroneous; but this error has not invalidated his 

 main conclusion as to the relation of cow-pox and smallpox. EDITOR. 



* It is necessary to observe that pustulous sores frequently appear spon- 

 taneously on the nipples of cows, and instances have occurred, though very 

 rarely, of the hands of the servants employed in milking being affected with 

 ores 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 the pustules in 

 that disease. No erysipelas attends them, nor do they shew any phagedenic 

 disposition as in the other case, but quickly terminate in a scab without 

 creating any apparent disorder in the cow. This complaint appears at vari- 

 ous seasons of the year, but most commonly in the spring, when the cows 

 are first taken from their winter food and fed with grass. It is very apt 

 to appear also when they are suckling their young. But this disease is not 

 to be considered as similar in any respect to that of which I am treating, 

 s it is incapable of producing any specific effects on the human constitution. 

 However, it is of the greatest consequence to point it out here, lest tht 

 want of discrimination should occasion- an idea of security from the infec- 

 tion of the smallpox, which might prove delusive* 



