V A .0 
¥ A G 
r a (? 
840 
u. 
T or V, the twentienth letter of our al- 
^ ? phabet. In numerals V stands for five; 
and with a dash added at top, thus V, it sig- 
nifies live thousand. In abbreviations, 
.amongst the Romans, V. A. stood for Vete- 
ran! assignati ; V. B. viro bono ; V. B. A. viri 
boni arbitratu ; V. B. F. vir bouse tidei; 
V. C. vir consularis; V. C.C. F. vale, con- 
jux charissime, feliciter : V. D. D. voto de- 
dicatur; V. G. verbi gratia; Vir. Ve. virgo 
vestalis; VL. videiicit; V. N. quinto nona- 
rum. 
VACATION, in law, is the whole time 
betwixt the end of one term and the begin- 
ning of another. 
This word is also applied to the time from 
■the death of a bishop, or other spiritual per- 
son, till the bishopric, or dignity, is supplied 
with another. 
VACCINATION. Inoculation with the 
vaccine virus, for the purpose of securing 
against the infection of the small pox. 
This subject cannot fail to “ come home 
to tlie business and bosom’’ of every one ; for 
where is the individual of such slender con- 
nection or limited sympathies, as to be indif- 
ferent to a question which “ involves the 
lives annually of 40,000 in Britain alone,” 
and of the same proportion throughout the 
civilized world ? 
It would be superfluous, then, to apologize 
for making the vaccine controversy a subject 
■of separate and prominent disquisition. 
We shall first lay before our readers a ge- 
neral history of the circumstances which led 
to the introduction of the new, as a substi- 
tute for the old, inoculation ; we shall then 
.enumerate the advantages which vaccination 
lays claim to, canvas the objections which 
have been made to the admission of such 
claims, and conclude by describing the gene- 
ral characteristics of perfect, and marks de- 
moting spurious, cow-pock infection. 
It is scarcely necessary to acquaint any 
reader by whom the first public proposal was 
made respecting the cow-pox inoculation. 
Dr. Jenner, while employed in the practice 
■of surgery in a district of Gloucestershire, 
was surprized to find that many individuals 
whom lie was called upon to inoculate, re- 
sisted every attempt to infect them with the 
•small-pox virus. Upon enquiring into the 
occasion of this extraordinary immunity, he 
learnt that those in whom it existed had pre- 
viously undergone a disease contracted by 
milking cows affected with a peculiar erup- 
tion on their teats. “ It appeared (says 
Dr. Jenner) that this disease had been known 
among the dairy-maids from time immemo- 
rial, and that a vague opinion prevailed that 
at was a preventive of the small pox. This 
.opinion I found was comparatively new 
among them ; for all the old farmers declar- 
ed they had no such idea in their early days : 
a circumstance which seemed easily account- 
ed for, from my knowing that the common 
people were very rarely inoculated for the 
small pox, till that practice was rendered ge- 
neral by the improved method introduced by 
the Suttons ; so that the working people in 
the dairies were seldom put to the test of the 
preventive power of the cow-pox.” In pro- 
secuting his enquiries. Dr. Jenner found it to 
be an unanimous opinion among medical prac- 
titioners in the neighbourhood, that the dis- 
ease thus contracted from the cow was by no 
means to be relied on as a security against va- 
riolous infection; an opinion wdiich he was at 
first concerned to find apparently well found- 
ed by the occurrence of the latter, in some 
individuals, who had been, as was imagined, 
subjected to the former. 
This discouraging circumstance, although it 
damped the ardour of Dr. Jenner, did not oc- 
casion the abandonment of his investigation; 
and he was shortly gratified in ascertaining 
that the cow' was subject to several varieties 
of eruption on her teats, all capable of pro- 
ducing ulcerations on the lianas of the milk- 
ers, but not of insuring against the infection 
of small pox. This discovery removed the 
great obstacle to his interesting research, and 
our experimentalist was the first to distin- 
guish and divide the genuine from the spuri- 
ous cow-pox. 
His expectations of success were a second 
time impaired, by finding that even among 
those who had been infected with the genu- 
ine virus, some were afterwards obnoxious to 
the small-pox contagion ; and this difference 
of subsequent susceptibility was even witness- 
ed in different individuals who had received 
the infection from the same animal. 
It required no common share of persever- 
ance still to abide by the object of pursuit af- 
ter this seemingly almost insurmountable im- 
pediment to success. Dr. Jenner, however, 
was engaged in an undertaking of too much 
magnitude and moment to abandon it, unless 
from absolute necessity, and he still per- 
sisted. 
It occurred to him that the specific proper- 
ties of the cow-pock matter might vary with 
its progressive changes alter secretion ; and 
putting this likewise to t lie test of experi- 
ment, the result coincided with his conjec- 
ture, affording an explanation of this second 
anomaly equally dear and satisfactory with 
the former, lie found, by repeated trials, 
that the genuine or preventive disease was 
only capable of being engendered by the 
matter irom the ulcer in its earliest stages; 
that when from continuance it had undergone 
certain decompositions, it was no more capa- 
ble of producing the true cow-pox than tlio.e 
eruptions of which we have already spoken. 
With these restrictions, Dr. Jenner found that 
the immunity from the variolous occasioned 
by the vaccine infection was for life ; at least 
individuals without any effect were subjected 
to the former after the lapse of 15, 27, and 
even 50 years from the latter infection. 
During this very curious and important in- 
vestigation, Dr. Jenner was struck with the 
idea that the preventive he had discovered of 
small-pox contagion might be propagated 
from one individual to another in the manner 
of variolous inoculation ; and lor this suppo- 
sition it does not Seem improper to notice 
that he had, in one sense, the authority of 
analogy beyond that which could be claimed 
by the first ingrafters of variola; for the natu- 
ral vaccine distemper is itself produced by a 
species of inoculation, which it is well knowm 
is by no means the case with the natural 
small pox. 
We have stated this circumstance not from 
a desire to prejudge the question of the com- 
parative merits of the variolous and vaccine 
inoculations. It is the duty of every one, it 
is ours especially and officially, to state argu- 
ments and facts as we find them, whether ini- 
mical to, or in favour ot, either one or the 
other practice. 
In pursuance of the plan we have above 
laid down, we now proceed to give as con- 
centrated a view as possible ot the superi- 
or advantages contended for by the advo- 
cates of inoculation for the cow-pox. 
These we shall principally extract from a 
popular work on vaccinia, by Dr. Thornton, 
one of the most ardent and effective support- 
ers and propagators of the new discovery. 
1. It is maintained that the constitutional 
affection which cow-pox produces, is incom- 
parably milder than that from variolous ino- 
culation. The proportion of deaths from- 
inoculated small pox is stated by Dr. Willan 
to be 1 in 250. “ The zealous antivaccinists 
have denied it to be greater, under judicious 
treatment, than 1 in 1000.” In the pre- 
sent, as in other instances, we leave the 
reader to select his own authority. We have 
only to add, that we believe the mortality at 
all of the vaccine distemper, in an immediate' 
or direct manner, has not been contended 
for. This first proposition, then, in lavotir of 
the vaccine disease, is scarcely contested. 
2. The cow-pox never disfigures the coun- 
tenance. Of this, likewise, there is no dis- 
pute, as it refers to the distemper merely, 
independantly of the supposed consequences 
of it, which we are shortly to canvas. 
3. r I he cow-pox may be introduced into 
the system without any apprehension of con- 
sequences, under circumstances which render 
even the inoculated small pox, in some measure, 
dangerous, such as the periods of teething, of 
pregnancy, and of advanced age. r l his pro- 
position we believe to be likewise too well 
lounded, and generally admitted to need sub- 
stantiating by examples. 
4. The cow-pox inoculation does not, like 
that of the small po-x, disseminate the d.sease 
