308 
Extracts from EllwoocCs History of his own Life. [Nov. I ? 
saying 44 no security at all for it 
strikes me, that the constitution loses 
its susceptibility of small-pox conta¬ 
gion, and its capability of producing 
the disease in its perfect and ordinary 
state, iu proportion to the degree of 
perfection which the vaccine vesicle 
has put on its progress, and that the 
smalbpox, taken subsequently, is mo¬ 
dified accordingly.* When no devia¬ 
tion takes place in the ordinary course 
of the vaccine vesicles, or when it is 
inconsiderable, the herpetic blotches or 
vesicles, of whatever kind they may 
be, often assume (sometimes as early 
as the third or fourth day after the in¬ 
sertion of the vaccine fluid) a new 
character, not unlike the vaccine, and 
keeping pace in their progress with 
the vesicles on the arm, die away with 
them, leaving the skin smooth.” 
These two papers comprehend, first, 
the simple fact of important deviations 
being produced by diseases in pre-oc¬ 
cupation of the skin ; and, secondly, a 
general account of the characters of 
these deviations, and their differing 
degrees of influence upon the vaccine 
protection. 
Some further observations were pub¬ 
lished by Dr. Wilson Philip, M.D. of 
Worcester, in an Appendix to his 
Work on Febrile Diseases, who re¬ 
quested some information from me on 
this interesting subject. This letter 
goes more into detail than the former, 
though its purport is the same—namely, 
to guard the practitioner against the 
insidious influence of a diseased skin, 
when he vaccinates. It will be an 
object of future consideration, to enter 
more generally into the minutis of 
this subject; but a sketch like this 
does not afford scope for the completion 
of such a design. Let me advise eveiy 
practitioner not to confine his cautions, 
nor to narrow my meaning to one class 
of eruptive affections. In short every 
disease of the skin, which may be called 
serous, or one that sends out a fluid 
capable of conversion into a scab, has 
the power of exerting this modifying 
and counteracting influence; and I 
have also seen purulent fluids exert a 
similar influence in producing devia¬ 
tions. If I was asked what were the 
other actual impediments to perfect 
* Further observation has confirmed 
this opinion, and also developed much other 
curious matter respecting the spontaneous 
blending of the herpetic with the vaccine 
fluid, through the medium of the constitu¬ 
tion, when under the influence of Herpes. 
vaccination, as a general answer I 
should say, that I scarcely know any 
other except spurious matter,t or im¬ 
pediments too obvious to require my 
naming them here, such as deranging 
the vaccine vesicle in its progress, by 
incautiously robbing it of its contents, 
or producing a new action by external 
violence. 
In addition, see Bateman’s Synopsis of 
Cutaneous Diseases, pp. 222, 223. Cross’s 
History of the Variolous Epidemic at 
Norwich, 1820, pp. 60, et seq. 196, and 
288. I was lately puzzled to find the cause 
of irregularity in a vaccine vesicle, the 
skin being free from any apparent erup¬ 
tion ; upon minute enquiry, I discovered 
a whitlow on the thumb, in which suppu¬ 
ration had taken place. 
— ♦ „ ■ i 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
sir, 
HE apnexed extracts from Thomas 
Ellwood’s History of his own 
Life, may perhaps be acceptable to the 
readers of the Monthly Magazine, as 
they give some notion of the domestic 
occupations of that great scholar and 
poet, John Milton: and shew him in 
an amiable and interesting point of 
view. John Chipchase. 
Thomas Ellwood was the author of a 
work, entitled, 44 Sacred History; or, 
the Historical part of the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures of the Old and New Testament, 
digested into due method, with respect 
to order of time and place, with obser¬ 
vations here and there tending to illus¬ 
trate some passages therein.” A well 
executed, pleasing, and instructive 
work, published 1705 and 1709. 
extracts from [thos. ellwood’s 
history of his own Life , printed 
1714. Second Edition of his intro¬ 
duction to JOHN MILTON. 
I mentioned before, that when I was 
a boy, I had made some good progress 
in learning, and lost it all again before 
I came to be a man : nor was I rightly 
sensible of my loss therein, until I 
came among the Quakers, but then I 
both saw my loss and lamented it; and 
applied myself with the utmost diligence 
at all leisure times to recover it: so 
false I found that charge to he, which 
in those times was cast as a reproach 
upon the Quakers, that they despised 
* I am happy to see that these interrup¬ 
tions are now discovered in Germany, as 
appears iu Professor Hufeland’s Journal 
for June, 1S19, an extract of which is 
given in the London Medical Repository, 
vol. xiv. p. 502. 
