Edward Jcnntr as Naturalist. 
57 
the immunity of milkers. Hunter was skeptical, but had 
told him that the only test of its truth was by actual trial. 
‘‘Don’t think,” he said, “but try. Be patient, be accurate.” 
Later, while still in London, he had mentioned it to sev¬ 
eral other friends, among them Sir George Baker, who 
received it with even slighter kindness. He now, in the 
comparative solitude and uninterruption of the country, 
continued his observations, and his reflections began to 
assume more definite shape. He ascertained that, of several 
eruptions upon the teats and udder of the cow, immunity re¬ 
sulted only from one, the true cow-pox. In 1780, besides 
the idea of propagating this artificially from the cow to the 
human subject, the first thought came to him of conveying 
it thence from person to person. He even went so far, in 
A 
1785, or thereabouts, as to formally bring the subject before 
two small medical societies in his immediate neighborhood, 
in the formation of which he had taken part. One of them 
usually met at the Fleece Inn, Rodborough, and the other at 
the Ship Inn, Alveston, about ten miles from Bristol. This 
he was wont to term the Convivio-Medical, and the former 
the Medico-Convivial. At these he would talk of cow-pox. 
and request his friends to investigate it for themselves. 
They one and all, however, and invariably, turned the deaf 
ear, and finally threatened to expel him from the Convivio 
Medical if he continued to harass them with what they 
considered so unprofitable a vagary. 
Biding his time, however, he abstained from print in 
this direction, and his first publication was not as a physi¬ 
cian, but as a naturalist. This was in 1787. The paper 
was communicated to the Royal Society, and was entitled 
“The Natural History of the Cuckoo.” It appeared in the 
Philosophical Transactions of that Society in 1788, and is 
contained in Vol. LXXVIII, p. 219, Article xiv. It is also 
in the abridged edition of 1809, containing an epitome of 
the Transactions from their commencement in 1665 to 1800, 
which is at the Redwood Library. The paper will be found 
in Vol. XVI. of this, at page 432. It occupies ten large 
