214 MICROBES, FEBMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



land's son, awakened alarm, and caused inoculation to 

 be discredited. 



Notwithstanding this, it was introduced into France 

 in 1723 by De La Costa, and i accepted by Chirac, 

 Helvetius, and by other physicians of the day. 

 Although opposed by the majority, and officially con- 

 demned by a decree of the Sorbonne in 1753, as "un- 

 lawful and contrary to the law of God" — a decree 

 officially confirmed by the faoiftty of medicine^ in 1763 

 — inoculation continued to be practised up to the 

 time when vaccination was substituted for it. 



Vaccination appears to have been practised in 

 Asia in earlier times. However this may be, it was 

 known in the south of France that farm servants who 

 had been affected by cow-pox were secured against 

 small-pox. These pustules generally occur oh the 

 udder, and the milkers were inoculated with the 

 vaccine matter, through some accidental scratch on 

 their hands. Rabault, a Frenchman, communicated 

 this fact in 1798 to Pew, an English physician and 

 a friend of Jenner. To Jenner we must assign the 

 merit of understanding the importance of this fact, 

 and deducing from it one of the most admirable dis- 

 coveries of modern medicine, the preventive method 

 which continually tends to become more general, and 

 to be extended to other diseases, especially since 

 Pasteur's late researches into vaccination for anthrax 

 and for fowl-cholera. 



Pasteur has also shown t the microbes are the 



