228 EDWARD JENNER 



over the inoculated vaccine pustules during their whole prog- 

 ress, yet these experiments were tried without the least effect. 

 However, to submit a matter so important to a still further 

 scrutiny, I desired Mr. H. Jenner to make any further experi- 

 ments which might strike him as most likely to establish or re- 

 fute what had been advanced on this subject. He has since 

 informed me "that he inoculated children at the breast, whose 

 mothers had not gone through either the smallpox or the 

 cow-pox; that he had inoculated mothers whose sucking in- 

 fants had never undergone either of these diseases ; that the 

 effluvia from the inoculated pustules, in either case, had been 

 inhaled from day to day during the whole progress of their 

 maturation, and that there was not the least perceptible effect 

 from these exposures. One woman he inoculated about a 

 week previous to her accouchement, that her infant might 

 be the more fully and conveniently exposed to the pustule; 

 but, as in the former instances, no infection was given, 

 although the child frequently slept on the arm of its mother 

 with its nostrils and mouth exposed to the pustule in the 

 fullest state of maturity. In a word, is it not impossible for 

 the cow-pox, whose only manifestation appears to consist in 

 the pustules created by contact, to produce itself by effluvia? 

 In the course of a late inoculation I observed an appear- 

 ance which it may be proper here to relate. The punctured 

 part on a boy's arm (who was inoculated with fresh limpid 

 virus) on the sixth day, instead of shewing a beginning 

 vesicle, which is usual in the cow-pox at that period, was 

 encrusted over with a rugged, amber-coloured scab. The 

 scab continued to spread and increase in thickness for some 

 days, when, at its edges, a vesicated ring appeared, and the 

 disease went through its ordinary course, the boy having had 

 soreness in the axilla and some slight indisposition. With 

 the fluid matter taken from his arm five persons were inocu- 

 lated. In one it took no effect. In another it produced a 

 perfect pustule without any deviation from the common 

 appearance; but in the other three the progress of the in- 

 flammation was exactly similar to the instance which afforded 

 the virus for their inoculation ; there was a creeping scab of 

 a loose texture, and subsequently the formation of limpid fluid 

 at its edges. As these people were all employed in laborious 







