Researches upon "spurious vaccination", or the abnormal phenomena accompanying and following vaccination in the Confederate army, during the recent American Civil War, 1861-1865 / by Joseph Jones.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches upon "spurious vaccination", or the abnormal phenomena accompanying and following vaccination in the Confederate army, during the recent American Civil War, 1861-1865 / by Joseph Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    clear, and came into action two or three days later ; but afterwards proceeded in as regular and decided a manner as in constitutions which were not previously en- gaged. I discovered at a very early period that the itch was not an impediment; as to the shingles, I cannot speak. The grand rejecting agent in children is the tooth rash or, as it is here commonly called, the red gum, especially while it continues bright and active. Dr. William Cleaver (when Bishop of Chester) promoted an ex- tensive variolous inoculation in his diocese. Some years after, he asked me if I could account for the very frequent failure of communicating the infection to young children. I told him that it applied equally to the vaccine; though frequently, if the virus was fresh and active, it would be suspended in its career for a time only, but push forward with success at last. I beg to assure you, Sir, that nothing I have met with has, in the slightest degree, shaken my faith in the vaccine. I have seven children, the eldest sixteen, all vac- cinated by myself; and of 14,305, all within a few miles of this place, I have never heard of a single fatal disappointment; and of only two or three cases of modified, or what I should feel inclined to call superficial, or cutaneous small-pox. As to remote or derivative diseases, I know of no such thing fairly to be ascribed to the cow-pox ; I have ample means of knowing if such a thing had taken place, as the people of my two parishes, and many in the neighborhood, are, somehow or other, continually coming under my consideration for medical assistance. My communica- tions of late years have been to Dr. Harvey according to the directions of the National Establishment; but I have met with no demand for inoculation since Feb- ruary' 1820, simply from the absence of any stimulating alarm. I am dear Sir, with the highest respect, Your most obedient humble servant, T. T. A. REED, Rector of Leckhamstead. Mr. Reed had, in 1806, printed and distributed a tract for the encouragement of those who entertained any doubt respecting the efficacy of vaccine inoculation ; and distinguished himself as an ardent and successful promoter of vaccination ; his tes- timony, therefore, is of great value. Dr. Jenner maintained to the last hour of 1 ;s life, that any cutaneous disease, however slight in appearance, was capa- ble of interfering with the regular course of the cow-pox, and of preventing it from exercising its full protecting influence : and his directions for obviating any deterioration of the virus regarded first, the character of the pustule itself, the time and quality of the lymph taken for inoculation, and all other cir- cumstances that might go to affect the complete progress of the disorder. Thus he maintained that the vaccine fluid should be