KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



47 



As for tameness, — no bird is more alive 

 to kindness than the nightingale. If only 

 you show towards him one tithe of the 

 affection that is so frequently and so dis- 

 gustingly lavished on over-grown puppies, 

 and the ugliest of our ugly half shorn French 

 poodles — " domestic abominations" who ne- 

 ver by any chance value it — you will find him 

 the best of companions— the very firmest of 

 friends. 



A word here about unnatural attachments ; 

 for we want to create a love for harmless 

 pleasures and amusements. How many 

 members of the fair sex do we daily see in 

 public, accompanied by dogs! Aye, whilst 

 walking, driving, — or in public conveyances ! 

 They seem to idolise their every movement, 

 and even allow the beastly creatures to 

 kiss their faces. Never do we witness such 

 sights without our heart revolting,— as well 

 from the brute as its owner. The latter 

 ought to know better. It is done both at home 

 and abroad — unblushingly too ! ! ! If en- 

 dearments must be lavished — and why not ? 

 surely some more fitting " Companion " than 

 a dog can be found ? We should think so, 

 if we were a woman ! Nobody can be 

 fonder of dogs than we are— but we like 

 to keep them in their proper place. 



SMALL POX AND VACCINATION. 



A vast deal op distrust of vaccination has, 

 it appears, lately been excited by a wrong-headed 

 physician, somewhat eminent as an observer and 

 recorder of medical phenomena, but not gifted 

 with the power of wielding statistical data, nor 

 remarkably potent in the logical faculty. He 

 has attempted to prove that vaccination is but 

 feebly preventive, and urges the expediency of 

 reverting to the practice of inoculation ! ! From 

 time to time, in consequence of his pertinacity in 

 proclaiming his mistakes, paragraphs have been 

 inserted in the papers calculated to throw dis- 

 credit upon vaccination, and causing thereby 

 much needless anxiety. The misapplied industry 

 of this gentleman has done much mischief, in 

 weakening the public faith in the only real pre- 

 ventive of small-pox; and surely he incurs no 

 slight responsibility who, without sufficient 

 grounds, unsettles the general reliance upon the 

 protective powers of vaccination. 



We regret to say that the small-pox is now 

 spreading fearfully amongst us, in certain 

 districts. The knowledge of the fact induces us 

 to transfer some very interesting particulars that 

 have )ust appeared on the subject in our contem- 

 porary, the Family Herald, from the pen of a 

 medical man. At such a season, they deserve 

 attentive perusal, and also the widest circulation 

 that can be given them. 



Little more than fourscore years ago (says our 

 observant contemporary), a youth, yet in his teens, 

 an apprentice to a surgeon near Bristol, heard a 

 young woman, who had called on his master for 

 advice, remark, on the subject of small-pox being 



mentioned, " I cannot take that disease, for I 

 have had the cow-pox." This observation 

 forcibly struck young Jenner, and was probably 

 the first step in the path of induction which led 

 to his rescuing from rural tradition a vague 

 belief among the peasantry of Gloucestershire 

 that a disease of the nipples of their cows, com- 

 municable to milkers, protected them ever after- 

 wards from attacks of small-pox. About thirty 

 years subsequent to this incident, and after much 

 patient and precise observation and experimen- 

 tation, amid discouragement from his friends and 

 medical associates, and difficulties inherent in 

 the inquiry itself, he published a thin, unpre- 

 tending quarto, in which he gave to the world 

 his brilliant discovery, that immunity could be 

 secured against one of the most loathsome and 

 fatal diseases; and that by very simple means 

 (if mankind were wise enough to adopt them) the 

 defacing, maiming, blinding, and destroying 

 small-pox could be extirpated from the face of 

 the earth. 



We of the present generation have little con- 

 ception of the ravages of the small-pox down to 

 the period when Jenner, in 1798, announced his 

 discovery. For forty years previously, notwith- 

 standing the practice of inoculation, which had 

 been tested during half a century, the deaths in 

 London averaged two thousand yearly, when 

 London contained not a third of its present 

 numbers. In every fourteen who died from all 

 causes, one fell a victim to small-pox. Three 

 out of every four patienls admitted to the London 

 Asylum for the Indigent Blind, the small-pox 

 had made sightless. The total deaths through- 

 out England from this scourge were estimated 

 at forty-five thousand yearly. It once swept 

 away in the Russian Empire two millions in a 

 single year. He whose beneficent genius should 

 stay this plague, may well take rank among the 

 most illustrious benefactors of mankind. 



More than half a century has passed away 

 since Jenner, speaking of vaccination, declared 

 that '" the annihilation of small-pox, the most 

 dreadful scourge of the human species, must be 

 the final result of this practice." Yet the in- 

 exorable Eegistrar- General still numbers small- 

 pox among the causes of mortality ; and for the 

 past few years his returns prove that this malady 

 is spreading ; that deaths from it have been more 

 frequent; and there are indications that, unless 

 vigorous preventive measures are taken, small- 

 pox, with somewhat of its ancient rigor, may 

 revisit us, to blind, disfigure, and destroy, and so 

 punish us for neglecting the means of protection 

 provided by the great Jenner. In 1842, 2715 

 persons died of small-pox; 4227 in 1847; and 

 6903 in 1848; notwithstanding the operation of 

 the Vaccination Act, which came into force in 

 1840. On inquiry at Somerset House, we 

 learn no abstracts have been made of the mor- 

 tality from small-pox in the intermediate years, 

 nor since 1848 ; but those who find it necessary 

 to inspect the Registrar-General's reports, must 

 have been struck with the frequent references by 

 most of the district registrars to the prevalence 

 of small -pox in their respective localities. In the 

 very List quarterly report, we are told, "Small- 

 pox has prevailed very extensively; and the pro- 

 vision of gratuitous vaccination for the people by 



