12 PHARMACEUTICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



rial was obtained from a pustule of a small-pox patient, and not from the cow, 

 as at present. The immunity against subsequent attacks was established, 

 but the disease transmitted through this older method of vaccination was 

 severe and often fatal; besides, the general vaccination was a source of 

 spreading the disease. In 1840 this form of vaccination was prohibited 

 in England by act of Parliament. 



In 1768 Jenner's attention was attracted to the value of vaccination, and 

 after a series of patient researches he perfected the method of vaccination 

 by means of the virus obtained from a cow which had been inoculated with 

 small-pox (vaccinia). Jenner established the first public institution for 

 vaccination in 1799, and in the following year the practice was introduced 

 into France, Germany, and the United States. Vaccination with vaccinia 

 material is now universal in all civilized countries and in countries under 

 civilized control, and as a result small-pox in an epidemic form does not occur 

 in these countries, and the disease has become less and less virulent, so that 

 it is no longer the dreaded scourge that it was two centuries ago. In spite 

 of the. beneficent influence of vaccination, there are individuals who oppose 

 this simple, harmless operation with all the energy that ignorance is capable 

 of. Civilized countries are beginning to raise the long-enforced small-pox 

 quarantine as a wholly unnecessary infliction, because vaccination makes the 

 spreading of small-pox impossible. France has raised the quarantine, 

 and so have several other countries, examples which will no doubt soon be 

 followed generally. In conclusion, it is of interest to note that the primary 

 cause of small-pox is unknown even to this day. No organism has thus 

 far been isolated from diseased tissues to which small-pox manifestations 

 could be ascribed. 



Period III. 



From Schwann (1837) to Pasteur (1862). (Investigations per- 

 taining to the relationship of micro-organisms to fermentation and 

 disease.) 



The discoveries of the cause of fermentation, of decay, and of wound 

 infection are closely associated. Many centuries ago Varro expressed it as 

 his opinion that certain minute animals, breeding in marshy places, got into 

 the system through mouth and nostrils and caused the disease and decay of 

 tissues. Theodoric (1260) taught that wound infection came from the air. 

 To prevent such infection he applied wine, which is known to be somewhat 

 antiseptic. John Colbach (1704) described a "new and secret method of 

 treating wounds by which healing took place without inflammation or 

 suppuration." 



From earliest time up to as late as i860, it was quite generally taught 



