On Vaccination, 



141 



To estimate the value of these ohservatlons, and of the conse- 

 quences which may be drawn from them, we must attend to the 

 history of the observations of Dr. Woodville^ and of the different 

 circumstances when inoculation with cow-pock matter was fol- 

 lowed by different kinds of eruptions. 



Dr. Woodville was chief physician to the London Small-pox 

 Hospital. He inoculated likewise both in the city and in the 

 country. His work was published in 1799, and relates almost 

 entirely to observations m.ade in 1/98, just after the epoch of the 

 original discovery of Jenner. The total number of cases given 

 by Woodville amounts to 510. In 2/4 of these there was an 

 eruption more or less abundant, and in 147 of them there was a 

 fever more or less remarkable.* 



At the same time, however, Dr. Jenner announced that the 

 inoculation with the cow-pock matter produced no eruption. 

 He had never observed any; and the physicians who employed 

 the new matter, both in London and in other parts of England, 

 afBrm the same thing.f 



Dr. Woodville having sent to Dr. Jenner cow-pock matter 

 collected in an hospital, and having received a quantity of other 

 matter from Jenner; the matter sent by Woodville inoculated 

 into more than 60 persons, in Berkeley, and the neighbourhood 

 by Dr. Jenner, and other physicians, produced no eruption ; 

 while on the other hand, the matter which Woodville received 

 from Dr. Jenner, though it had occasioned no eruptions when 

 employed by Dr. Jenner, produced them anew when used by 

 Dr. Woodville.J 



Thus the phenomenon was confined to Dr. Woodville. It 

 neither depended upon the virus nor upon any thing peculiar in 

 London. 



A new observation was soon after made by Dr. Woodville 

 himself. The eruptions gradually began to disappear in his hos- 

 pital, when patients inoculated with the small-pox no longer re- 

 mained in it. The rate of disappearing evidently points out the 

 origin of the eruption. The eruptions observed in 310 persons 

 gradually reduced themselves to 19 per cent., to 13 per cent., 

 to 7 per cent., and at last to 8 or 4 per cent. While in persons 

 vaccinated in the city, he observed no eruptions whatever. § 



Bibl. Brit. vol. ix. p. 394 ; xn. 163, 298, 325. 



f See the work of Dr. Woodville translated by M. Aubert, and the Bibl, 

 Eritannique, scientific department^ vol. xii. p. 146, 163, 172, 173, 272. Pear- 

 son's Observations concerning Eruptiens, extracted in the Bibl. Britan. vo!, xiv. 

 p. 254. Jenner's Enquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolee Vaccina;^ 

 London, 1798, extr. Bibl, Britan. vol. ix. p. 367, 394. Correspondence of Dr. 

 De Carro, and report of Dr. Woodville, ibid. vol. xii. p. 163, 290. 



X Bib). Brit. vol. xii. p. 293, 325; xv. 367. 



§ Observations on the Cow-poXj Yyoodville, London, 1800, extr. Bibl, Brit„ 

 ToL x\, p. STO, 



i 



