192 
GEORGE FLEMING. 
early part of this century, and they may have witnessed merely 
local outbreaks, such as occur now and again in different 
countries. It appears to have been known from time immemorial, 
and was certainly so in India, Persia, South America, and the 
continent of Europe long before the time of Jenner. But it had 
not been studied until Jenner’s discovery, and its presence may 
have often been overlooked, or it may have been confounded with 
other bovine disorders. Soon after tbe announcement of the pro¬ 
tective influence of vaccination on man, cow-pox was sought for 
and found at Castres, Nancy, Metz, Strasbourg, and Itambouillet, 
in France, as well as in various parts of Italy, Prussia, Spain, 
Wurtemberg, Holstein, Denmark, and elsewhere in Europe. 
That cow-pox did appear, and that it was, perhaps, somewhat 
common in that part of Gloucestershire in which Jenner resided, 
and indeed in many places in England, is not at all denied; but 
that its prevalence was owing to small-pox being rife, is opposed 
to all clinical and experimental evidence. Small-pox is trans¬ 
mitted with difficulty to the cow, and does not produce co\V-pox, 
as I have already asserted. If cow-pox was more common a cen¬ 
tury ago than at present, this may be due to the greater care be¬ 
stowed upon cattle in their dwellings, and more general good man¬ 
agement now than formerly. Dairies are kept cleaner and more 
wholesome, and people who milk and go among cows are more 
proper in their own persons then they probably were years ago ; 
consequently if a case of cow-pox does appear, it has not the 
same facilities for transmission to other cows. This transmission 
appears to bo mainly effected by the milker ; the vesicles, being 
chietty localized on the udder or teats, are ruptured in the act of 
milking, and the virus on the dairymaid’s hands is transplanted 
to the lacteal apparatus of the cows she next milks. Sores are 
frequent on the teats, and the presence of these renders vaccina¬ 
tion all the more certain. It is very unlikely that people affected 
with small-pox would work in dairies, and still more unlikely, if 
they did so, that they would infect the cows. If cow-pox could 
be produced through the medium of diseased dairymaids, it ought 
to be more common now than before vaccination was introduced, 
seeing the great difficulty with which small-pox is transferred to 
