The natural history of cow-pox and vaccinal syphilis / by Charles Creighton.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of cow-pox and vaccinal syphilis / by Charles Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    It will be convenient to point out, in this connection, that the polemic of Squirrell against vaccination when it was first started * was based upon the assumption that the grease of the horse’s hocks was the real source of vaccine matter, such being Jennei’’s theory, but not his practice. Squirrell’s arguments were therefore rather easily met by practical vaccinators; but on general grounds they are still worth quoting : “ On reading Dr. Jenner’s account of the origin of the cow-pox [from horse-grease], I was struck with such horror and aversion, that I could not, as a man of honour or feeling, submit to or coincide with vaccination. . . What in the name of God could have induced him to have introduced a disease of so filthy a nature, and apparently, according to his own account, such a dangerous tendency] I should have imagined that his own description would have furnished him with the most powerful argument against it.” f Squirrell does not seem to have known how hesitating and full of fears Jenner was, owing to his uniformly discouraging ex- perience of ulceration, following not only the casual but also the experimental insertion of cow-pox and horse-grease matter. He oveidooks also the modest role assigned to vaccination in the original Inquiry. \ Moseley had a more * Observations on the Cow-Pox, shewing that it originates in Scrophula, and is no security against the Small-Pox, London, 1805. ■\Loc. cit., p. 4. J “ Should it be asked whether this investigation is a matter of mere curiosity, or whether it tends to any beneficial purpose, I should answer that, notwithstanding the happy effects of inoculation, etc. . . I have never seen fatal effects arise from the cow-pox, even when impressed in the most unfavourable manner, producing extensive inflammations and suppurations on the hands ; and as it clearly appears that the disease leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection of