VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX 187 



1 owe to the public, you are at liberty to make what use 

 you please of this letter. I remain, &c., 



"John Earle. 



* FRAMPTON-UPON SEVERN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, November 10, 1798. 



" P. S. I think it necessary to observe that I can pro- 

 nounce, with the greatest certainty, that the matter with 

 which the Arlingham patients were inoculated was taken 

 from a true smallpox pustule. I took it myself from a 

 subject that had a very full burthen." 



Certain then it is that variolous matter may undergo such 

 a change from the putrefactive process, as well as from 

 some of the more obscure and latent processes of nature, 

 as will render it incapable of giving the smallpox in such 

 a manner as to secure the human constitution from future 

 infection, although we see at the same time it is capable 

 of exciting a disease which bears so strong a resemblance 

 to it as to produce inflammation and matter in the incised 

 skin (frequently, indeed, more violent than when it pro- 

 duces its effects perfectly), swelling of the axillary glands, 

 general indisposition, and eruptions. So strongly persuaded 

 was the gentleman, whose practice I have mentioned in page 

 56 of the late treatise, that he could produce a mild small- 

 pox by his mode of managing the matter, that he spoke of 

 it as a useful discovery until convinced of his error by the 

 fatal consequence which ensued. 



After this ought we to be in the smallest degree surprised 

 to find, among a great number of individuals who, by living 

 in dairies, have been casually exposed to the cow-pox virus 

 when in a state analogous to that of the smallpox above de- 

 scribed, some who may have had the disease so imperfectly 

 as not to render them secure from variolous attacks? For 

 the matter, when burst from the pustules on the nipples of 

 the cow, by being exposed, from its lodgment there, to the 

 heat of an inflamed surface, and from being at the same 

 time in a situation to be occasionally moistened with milk, 

 is often likely to be in a state conducive to putrefaction; 

 and thus, under some modification of decomposition, it must, 

 of course, sometimes find access to the hand of the milker 



