Volume 1

History and pathology of vaccination / by Edgar M. Crookshank.

  • Crookshank, Edgar M. (Edgar March), 1858-1928.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History and pathology of vaccination / by Edgar M. Crookshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of Cow Pox arising independently of horse “ grease,” Jenner avoided, for a time, any further reference to the origin of the disease. It was Fraser^ who was led by the term variolcF vaccincB to regard Cow Pox as modified Small Pox. After setting aside the Jennerian theory, that Cow Pox is modified horse grease, Fraser wrote ;— “My own opinion of the origin of this disease is certainly original, and I believed till lately that it was also singular; but my learned friend, Dr. James Simms, has broached the same idea in a paper read before the Medical Society of London, and pub- lished in the last volume of their memoirs. I believe that the Small Pox and the Cow Pox are one and the same disease under diiferent modifications ; and I have found, in course of conversation with some of the most eminent medical and chirurgical doctors in the metropolis, that after having attentively listened to many of the arguments which may be fairly adduced in favour of this opinion they have appeared often to incline to the same belief. I am aware that the proposition may be considered, by some, equally fanciful and absurd with Dr. Jenner’s, but at the same time let them remember that it is at least supported by analo^^y, philosophy, and, of course, probability, although not in the present state of our knowledge by experiment. I do not intend to insist upon this doctrine as incontrovertible, nor even to enter largely, at present, into its merits with a view of establishing it, but shall content myself with observing that such a circumstance would answer the most important and useful purposes.” Before seeing what those useful purposes were, it is as well to mention that Fraser concluded this paper by asserting that his view was established on the “ solid and imperishable foundation of truth; ” but, ' Heniy Fraser, M.D. Observations on Vaccine Dioculation. 1805. VOL. I. 28