The physician and farmer ; or, vaccination explained / by T.S. Fletcher.

  • Fletcher, T.S.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physician and farmer ; or, vaccination explained / by T.S. Fletcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    the first instance from being milked by hands infected with the then very common disease—small-pox, and by accidental vaccination from oae to another; for in 1839 Mr. Sealey, of Aylesbury, inoculated a cow with human small-pox, and obtained cow-pox from the places inocu- lated ; and so proved cow-pox to be human small-pox in a. mild and harmless form. A fresh supply of cow-pox is easily and frequently obtained by inoculating or vacci)iating a cow on the upper part of the teat, as a child is on the arm. Cow-pox does not become weaker by passing through many persons, but like small-pox, hydrophobia, and other similar diseases, it is an un- chaugeable specific animal poison ; and this is easily proved by the following simple experiment:—Vaccinate a child in two places with cow-pox taken direct from a cow, and on the same arm vaccinate in the same number of places with old cow-pox—which, for aught you know, has descended direct from Phipps—and you will find no difference in the four. F.—Why have persons as a general rule small-pox only once ? P.—Professor Liebeg compares smallpox (which is classed amongst the fermenting diseases) to yeast, which, when put into wort (as in brewing) ferments; that is, it feeds and grows upon the gluten in the wort, and will do so as long as any remains. After this, the yeast will have no effect, for there is no gluten on which it can act. And in like manner, sraall-pox, or cow-pox, acts upon a peculiar principle naturally in the blood, and it continues to feed upon and is increased by this principle, so long as any of it remains. But after it has thus been removed, neither small-pox nor cow-pox can have any effect, there being no peculiar principle remaining in the blood on which it can act. F.—How is it, then, that some persons have smallpox a second tim£, and others have it after vaccination ? P.—It is not because the first attack of small-pox had not removed all liability to the disease that they have it the second time, but because such persons have a peculiarity of constitution, giving them the power