VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX 205 



but as exemplifications of the human system's susceptibility 

 of the variolous contagion, although it has been previously 

 sensible of its action. 



Happy is it for mankind that the appearance of the small- 

 pox a second time on the same person, beyond a trivial 

 extent, is so extremely rare that it is looked upon as a 

 phenomenon ! Indeed, since the publication of Dr. Heber- 

 den's paper on the Varicellas, or chicken-pox, the idea of 

 such an occurrence, in deference to authority so truly 

 respectable, has been generally relinquished. This I conceive 

 has been without just reason; for after we have seen, among 

 many others, so strong a case as that recorded by Mr. 

 Edward Withers, Surgeon, of Newbury, Berks, in the fourth 

 volume of the Memoirs of the Medical Society of London 

 (from which I take the following extracts), no one, I think, 

 will again doubt the fact. 



"Mr. Richard Langford, a farmer of West Shefford, in 

 this county (Berks), about fifty years of age, when about 

 a month old had the smallpox at a time when three others 

 of the family had the same disease, one of whom, a servant 

 man, died of it. Mr. Langford's countenance was strongly 

 indicative of the malignity of the distemper, his face being 

 so remarkably pitted and seamed as to attract the notice of 

 all who saw him, so that no one could entertain a doubt of 

 his having had that disease in a most inveterate manner." 

 Mr. Withers proceeds to state that Mr. Langford was seized 

 a second time, had a bad confluent smallpox, and died on the 

 twenty-first day from the seizure; and that four of the 

 family, as also a sister of the patient's, to whom the disease 

 was conveyed by her son's visiting his uncle, falling 

 down with the smallpox, fully satisfied the country with 

 regard to the nature of the disease, which nothing short of 

 this would have done ; the sister died. 



"This case was thought so extraordinary a one as to in- 

 duce the rector of the parish to record the particulars in the 

 parish register." 



It is singular that in most cases of this kind the disease in 

 the first instance has been confluent; so that the extent of 

 the ulceration on the skin (as in the cow-pox) is not the 

 process in nature which affords security to the constitution. 



