A new compendium of the principles and practice of medicine : embracing the most recent improvements in the science / by Abrm. Livezey and J. Emerson Kent.

  • Livezey, Abraham, 1821-1896.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new compendium of the principles and practice of medicine : embracing the most recent improvements in the science / by Abrm. Livezey and J. Emerson Kent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Vaccination. That a bovine disorder, transferred to man, should protect him against the inception of small pox, is one of the most interesting and curious facts re- corded in the history of medicine : but the fact is indispu- table. History. The peasants of a certain district in Glou- cestershire, England, first recognised this great truth, and the results of their observations were gradually matured into a rational and scientific system, by the immortalJen- ner,—a man who was imbued with the true spirit of phil- osophical investigation, and a close observer of nature ; to such men as Jenner and Newton, no fact, however small, is without value. Whilst engaged in his professional duties, he learned from the peasents who were employed in the dairies of the district, that their hands were often attacked with an eruption which they had traced to a similar eruption on the udders of the cows they milked : and the belief had become general in Gloucestershire that no person who had had the Cow Pox, could take the Small Pox. But this truth, recognised by an illiterate peasantry, was de- cried by the sapient Faculty as a popular superstition, un- worthy the attention of men of science and reputation ; and thus the Faculty again opposed the pi'ogress of medi- cal improvement. Dr. Jenner, however, who had a mind untrammelled by the authorities of the schools, determined to investigate the whole subject, which he soon found to be a great truth ; and in the face of the most determined professional and clerical opposition, he finally succeeded in establishing the practice of Vaccination, so called from vacca, a cow. In common with every other improvement in mediciw\ 4*