ORIGIN OF VACCINATION. 
719 
thereby rendered unsusceptible of the smallpox, as appears 
from the exposure of all the parties to that disease frequently 
during the course of thirty-one years, and from the inocula¬ 
tion of the two sons for the smallpox fifteen years ago. 
That he was led to undertake this novel practice in 1774 
to counteract the smallpox, at that time prevalent where he 
then resided, from knowing the common opinion of the 
country ever since he was a boy—now about sixty years ago 
—that persons who had gone through the cowpox naturally, 
i. e ., by taking it from cows, were unsusceptible of the small¬ 
pox ; by himself being incapable of taking the smallpox, by 
having gone through the cowpox many years before; from 
having personally known many individuals who, after the 
cowpock, could not have the smallpock excited; from believing 
that the cowpock was an affection free from danger; and 
from his opinion that by the cowpock inoculation he should 
avoid engrafting various diseases of the human constitution, 
such as the evil, madness, lues, and many bad humours, as 
he calls them. 
The remarkable vigorous health of Mr. Jesty, his wife and 
two sons, now thirty-one years subsequent to the cowpock, 
and his own healthy appearance at this time—seventy years of 
age—afford a singular proof of the harmlessness of that affec¬ 
tion. But the public must, with particular interest, hear that 
during their late visit to town Mr. Robert Jesty very willingly 
submitted publicly to inoculation for the smallpock in the 
most rigorous manner, and that Mr. Jesty was also subjected 
to the trial of inoculation for the cowpock after the most 
efficacious mode, without either of them being infected. 
The circumstances in which Mr. Jesty purposely instituted 
the vaccine pock inoculation in his own family, viz., without 
any precedent , but merely from reasoning upon the nature of 
the affection among cows, and from knowing its effects in the 
casual way among men—his exemption from the prevailing 
popular prejudices, and his disregard of the clamorous 
reproaches of his neighbours—in our opinion well entitle 
him to the respect of the public for his superior strength of 
mind; but, further, his conduct in again furnishing such 
decisive proofs of the permanent antivariolous efficacy of the 
cowpock in the present discontented state of many families, 
by submitting to inoculation, justly claims, at least, the grati¬ 
tude of the country. 
As a testimony of our personal regard, and to commemo¬ 
rate so extraordinary a fact as that of preventing the small¬ 
pox by inoculation for the cowpox thirty one years ago, at 
our request a three-quarters length picture of Mr. Jesty is 
