Information respecting the origin, progress, and efficacy of the kine pock inoculation, in effectually and forever securing a person from the small-pox / extracted from a treatise entitled "A prospect of exterminating the small-pox." Written in the year 1802.

  • Benjamin Waterhouse
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Information respecting the origin, progress, and efficacy of the kine pock inoculation, in effectually and forever securing a person from the small-pox / extracted from a treatise entitled "A prospect of exterminating the small-pox." Written in the year 1802. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    some distemper, that baffles in description all the powers of language. It pleased the awful, all-ruling mind, u in ’whom we live, move, and have our being” to communicate to distressed humanity, a safe and easy remedy against this loathsome pes¬ tilence. The highly favored individual was Edward Jenner, of Berkley, a small town in the vale of Glocester in England. He it was, that with aFRANKLiNiAN sagacity first transferred the vaccine infection from that mild, healthy, and invaluable domestic animal the cow to the human person. This happy discovery was announced to the world by Dr. Jenner in June 1798. Five months after, it was communi¬ cated to Dr. Waterhouse by Dr. Lettsom. At this period not more than three or four persons had been inoculated with the cow-pox in London. And this town of JVew-Bedford is now reaping the benefit of the labours of these men. The Parliament of England, with a noble generosity, characteristic of the nation, have given Dr. Jenner thirty thousand pounds sterling. They wisely considered, that if they gave rank and fortune to the Genera], whose business it was to destroy lives, they ought in justice to suffering humanity to place the Physician, who had been the means of saving the lives of so many of their subjects, in a state of ease and affluence.*. OF THE SPURIOUS AND OF THE TRUE KINE-POCK. Dr. JENNER informs us, that during his early investiga¬ tion of the kine-pock he found that some of those, who seem- cd to have undergone the disease, nevertheless on inoculation with the small-pox felt its influence just the same, as if no disease had been communicated to them by the cow. As he proceeded, he learnt that the cow was subject to eruptions on * Extracted from the New Bedford Mercury, Oct. 6, 1809.