284 



Oil Vaccination, 



[April, 



and vaccinated, the cow-pox appeared only upon one, and hfr 

 alone was cured. 



Several other observers, to the number of 14, have furnished 

 various remarkable facts respecting different other diseases. In 

 an infant, a year old, a palsy of the left arm, which had lasted 

 two months, disappeared a month after vaccination, performed 

 by making six punctures in the diseased arm. A great number 

 of violent coughs have been suspended, moderated, or cured. 

 The consequences of suppressed measles, namely, a dry cough, 

 fever, and diarrhoea, were cured by a cow-pox induced by 20 

 punctures, during the suppuration of which a strong fever and 

 miliary eruption occurred. A violent pain in the joint of the 

 left thigh, with which a child of nine years of age was afflicted, 

 with a threatening of spontaneous luxation of the limb, was 

 treated by means of 18 punctures round the diseased joint. 

 Sixteen pox, the aureolas of which were confluent, occasioned 

 fever, and then suppurated. Soon after the pain of the joint 

 disappeared, and the cure was complete. A wbite swelling of 

 the knee in a child of eight years of age, and a deafness which 

 had increased for 1 8 months in a child of six years of age, were 

 both cured by vaccination. 



Such are the facts which we have collected respecting the 

 diseases existing at the time of vaccination, and cured by that 

 process. We have noticed those only which are related with 

 precis'on. We do not think that they ought to be always consi- 

 dered as cures due to vaccination. Separately taken, we do not 

 see in them any thing else than a coincidence between the time 

 of cure and vaccination ; but taken collectively, we think that 

 the number of facts, and the circumstances accompanying those 

 which we have particularly noticed, give at least a presumption 

 in favour of vaccination, more than sufficient to counterbalance 

 the facts which have been alleged in favour of the small-pox, 

 in what way soever that disease is communicated. We acknow- 

 ledge, at the same time, that a comparison between vaccination 

 and inoculation for the small-pox, in this point of view, cannot 

 be fairly made, because a much greater number of cases of the 

 former than of the latter have been given to the public. Vacci- 

 nation, under the special protection of Government, has become 

 the object of a regular and active correspondence, in which few 

 facts have escaped observers, only in danger of being led astray 

 by their zeal. Inoculation, on the other hand, but little favoured 

 by Government, vi7as become the object of enterprizes, in which 

 a spirit of cupidity was much more prevalent than a spirit of 

 observation. 



It will be asked, perhaps, whether, if we admit an equality of 

 advantages in favour of vaccination and inoculation, considered 

 as a remedy for different diseases, it would not be of advantage 



