144

THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.

Sllti) Jutliau

memoirs which record

fefjtte.

ments

MAY 1889.

demonstrating

theory

If the labors of the

Royal Commission on Vaccination conducted, as we assume they Avill be, with strict impartiality and thoroughness we may safely predict a triumph for the cause are

Indeed,

clear review of the

a

whole

regards

as

small-pox

tween

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON VACCINATION.

of vaccination.

[May, a

series of brilliant

cow-pox?

the decisive

forgotten

experiments

small-pox. brought about by a

few talented

been

mainly

the clamorous assertions of

men

who

probably

well, subject is

mean

but whose grasp of the vacciuatiou not equal to the pertinacity and vehemence with which in to

support the

they express their views, and who, of their opinions, never tire pointing

immunity

from

which Lei-

small-pox

are

investigators proved

own

other observations

has

The works

way, that vaccine is only small-pox modified either by passing through an animal or

in his

arisen in many minds in efficacy of vaccination as attitude

be-

of Badcock and Thiele

Each of these

?

by being subjected to certain have an attenuating effect on

This

relationship

buried in old libraries and seldom takeu from their shelves. Nor are the works of other colaborers, in the same field, better known. Are not

subject is much needed at the present time to brush away the doubts which have England as to the a protective against

experi-

the correctness of Jen tier's

the intimate

and

1889.

in these old

are

conditions which the virus.

Many

recorded here and there

books, showing

the

identity

of small-

pox and vaccine which throw considerable light the life history of the contagion of these on affections ; and which have their fitting supplement in recent researches into the microccocus common to

the

cow-pox, recent

more

small-pox,

attempts

to

and vaccine, and cultivate these

micro-organisms outside the body of their inherent qualities.

without loss

The Commission will not

the

require to go far back in time to compare the fatality and prevalence of small-pox in the pre-vacciue days with

17th century, aud which it would be quite impossible to carry out in as large a town as Liverpool or Manchester, not to mention London.

that of the present. Scarcely 100 years have elapsed since vaccination was first introduced into practice, and 100 years prior to the discov-

that the inhabitants of

cester

that

enjoys, forgetful, city are subjected

as was ever

enforced

to as

during

The Commission will not

discharging

an

rigid the

only

a

quarantine

plague

in

be useful in

important function by laying underly the arguments

ery will give plenty of material to cause auy one to hesitate and consider before recommending a

the unprotected

bare the fallacies that

return to

employed by auti-vaccinatiouists, but,

impossible

we

trust,

it will also be of service in other direction For able

able form the great

mass

of

of the terrible

aud

read-

among the

important

accumu-

and

foreign,

which

are

quite

inaccessible

to the

population of England?" and the small-pox was always present, filling the churchyard with corpses, tormenting with constant fears all whom it had not yet stricken, it spared, the on those, whose lives traces

carried on, how many of the leaders have read the original works of the immortal Jeuuer or

making

be

asked,

are

acquainted

with

Ceely's celebrated

leaving hideous

of its power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and

ordinary reader whether he be a medical man or layman. In the discussions that have beeu

any part of the instructive literature which his great discovery gave rise to among the medical men of his day ? How many, it may

Once read, it is account of Queeu

iu 1694, and his vivid description havoc, small-pox then created

valu-

lative evidence to be found iu the important facts stored up in reports and books, Euglish

state-

forget Macaulay's

Mary's death

will be

investigations collecting into a concise

example, in

its

s.

to

the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maideu objects of horror to the lover." Nor is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's famous

letters, written iu 1717, on the practice of inoculation less impressive iu that she writes of her intention to allow her own child to be experi-

AUTO-TOXICITY OP SNAKES.

May, 1889.]

mented upon, because it gives a milder disease and saves him from the risk of small-pox which is "so fatal and should not

"

general

so

in

"I

England.

fail to write to some

of

doctors

our

very particularly about it, if I knew any one of had virtue enough to dethem that I thought O O

stroy such

a

considerable branch of their

reve-

'? good of mankind." A more precise witness comes forward about this time to give his testimony of the terrible state of things existing with respect to smallpox. Dr. Irwin, the Secretary of the Royal Society, published in 1722 a paper on the subject, in the philosophical transactions of the society, based on the examinations of the Lonnue

for the