Royal Jennerian Society for the extermination of the small-pox, by the extension of vaccination. [Report, with regulations, lists of officers and subscribers, etc.].

  • Royal Jennerian Society
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Royal Jennerian Society for the extermination of the small-pox, by the extension of vaccination. [Report, with regulations, lists of officers and subscribers, etc.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    V 13 on me, and beg leave to solicit the Managers’ pardon, respect¬ fully returning them my sincerest thanks. « I feel anxious in stating to those gentlemen, that every exer¬ tion which lies in my power (both pecuniary and professionally) shall not be wanting to eradicate the loathsome disease. I am sorry to add, it has latterly plunged this neighbourhood into dreadful alarm : no less than twenty individuals have fallen vic¬ tims to its pestilential contagion within the last fourteen days. 1 have now three children, in one family, dreadfully afflicted with the smallpox. The mother is very much marked by the infec¬ tious disease. I told her she had much to answer for, probably the death of those she ought to hold most dear. If no dissolu¬ tion took place, it may prove a galling reflection to the children affected, that they might have claimed an equal share of hand¬ some appearance as those of their neighbours, who were so pru¬ dent as to procure the antidote. I wish to acquaint the Managers, that country practitioners have a great many difficulties to contend with; and the general prejudice in this part of the kingdom is, and the vuigar sort of people say that, after vaccination, if the pustule is broken and the virus taken from the arm, the effect would not be sufficient. I have many patients here who object to vaccination, but trust I shall overcome their objections. The traveller of Messrs. Vallance and Co., of Garlick Hill, Upper Thames-street, will be here in a few days, whom I shall request to pay my subscription to your Institution, of «£*1. per annum, with the fullest confidence that, if all were to unite in so good a cause, bv caution, we should not feel the effects of small¬ pox any more than we do, at present, that of the plague. “ I am, respected, Sir, “ Yours obediently, « WM. THOMAS.” To Doctor Walker, Director of the London Vaccine Institution• i “ St. Peter’s, Cambridge, April 19> 1821. “ Sir, “ From many years proof of vaccination, I am fully convinced of its efficacy in preventing the variola. I have some patients, in Cambridge, who have been nurses to children infected with variola in the natural way, and have never received the least infection. I have never received any fee or reward from any person or persons, hitherto, for my labour; but I am sorry that a generous public do not come forward with more spi¬ rit to strengthen that noble institution and strictly to prohibit inoculations for variola, which I have known near me to be done