Cheap tract on the cow-pox. A plain statement of facts, in favour of the cow-pox, intended for circulation through the middle and lower classes of society / [John Thomson].

Thomson, John, active 1809.

Date:: 1809

Credit: Cheap tract on the cow-pox. A plain statement of facts, in favour of the cow-pox, intended for circulation through the middle and lower classes of society / [John Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$deaths from the Small-pox in London was three thousand. The lives saved in our Capital by the Cow-pox, will be seen by glancing over the following numbers : In the year 18o ', died ol the Small-pox, 1.461.) q , ■- 1802, ^ * ^^eethe -- 1803, 1804, J.579- L Bills of ‘•--J Mortality. In 1805, the Small-pox raged with great violence, and 1779 died of this disease, and in the lad year 1808, 1169, or about a seventeenth of the whole deaths were owing to the Smali-pox. This great proportion in London compared with the country is ow’ing to the oppobtion which Cow-pox has met with from those interelled in inoculation lor the Small-pox, and from others prejudiced againO the Cow-pox; from the practice of inocu- iating out-patients at the Small-pox Ilospital, (a source of infection now liappiiy though but lately stopped,) and from the indolent and cruel habit cd parents in not subjecting their children to the Cow-pox, till the Small-pox rages near them, and begins to thin their neighbouihood. The Cow-pox has also been violently opposed in London, which though it may juftly and proudly boaft some of the brighicll ornaments of the medical proiefbon, is the great stage upon which Quacks in the piofelhon and out of it, play off inofl; successtuliy flieir puffs and tucks, and popular delufions, to gull, cheat, and pick the pockets of the foolilh multitude. In 1802, on a report of a committee of the House of Com¬ mons, ci 10.000 were voted (o Dr. jenner, and in 1807, on a report of the College of PlnTicians, of‘20,000 were voted to him, as a reward for his discovery, lor his ingenuity, perse¬ verance, sacrifices, and difinterestcdnefs. When we reflect that one out of fix dies of natural Small pox, one out of three hundred of inoculated Small pox, that a tenth of the deaths of London were owung to this disease, that the number of deaths ■was on the whole encrea'^ed by inoculation, that in many the Small pox called forth king’s evil, eruptions, and abscesses, caused hliiidncls, larnencls, and deformity, that forty-five tliousand died of it annually in tlie Linited Kingdoms, inde- ])endcnt of the deaths in the army and navy,(51) we may form sonie idea of the debt which the world owes to Dr. Jenner, whose labours will be remembered and blessed to the latest ge- (51) Tn the nnvy Dr. Tvoiter, late physician to the fleet says, (hat there are alwav.s ten thousand who have not had the Smail-pox. The advantage of the Co\^-pox to the navy was stated l)y Admiiai Pole; and General 'I'arleion .speak¬ ing cl the nuiuhei (j1 lives saved by the Cow-pox in the army, said, “ h v,r.s oi' great iinponancc that the troops on recovery might leave their barracks, and otlmVs snccecd without any danger of infection. Military members are said to be mo.s’ hmd of praising great eoiKpierois, but in his opinion, this gentleman who saved th.c lives of luiiiions was cniiileu to more puuse than the greatest conqueror 1” btockdalc’s Paiiiamcutary Register for 1807, p. 515.$