Transactions ... for the year 1829. With the annual address / by T. Romeyn Beck.

  • Medical Society of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y.)
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions ... for the year 1829. With the annual address / by T. Romeyn Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    eiefcy, be made to the President of this Society, in writing, who shall order the Censors of this Society to proceed to the examination upon the appeal. A communication was received from Dr. Osborn, delegate from New York—which was ordered to lie on the table. A communication from the Medical Society of New-York, was received in the following words : t( Among the different subjects, the successful pros¬ ecution of which by this and the State Society, would contribute much to the amelioration of human suffering and the advancement of medical science, no one appears to be of greater importance than that of Vaccination. Since the discovery of cow pox inoculation, the most loathsome, terrible and destructive disease which ever pervaded the earth, had at one time ap¬ parently been disarmed of its terrors. Within a few years however, a renewed interest has been excited upon this subject. The repeated occurrences of an epidemic small pox, in both its pure and modified forms, in this city and in other parts of this country, as well as in Europe, have emphatically reminded us that we have not as yet derived all those high ad¬ vantages from vaccination, which the subject under proper management is capable of imparting to socie¬ ty- The failures of vaccination affording protection against small pox, may be readily accounted for from the following circumstances : 1st. From the operation being performed at an im¬ propertime, as, when the child is teething or laboring under cutaneous or other diseases. 2dly. From the use of impure virus. 3dly. From peculiarity of temperament, w hich is not susceptible of full impression from a single inser¬ tion, but requires a second or third inoculation. The omissions of a resort to this mild prophylactic among the poor more especially, arise from pride and prejudice. The former passion prevents them from resorting to the gratuitous means hitherto proffered