A review of Mr. Brown's work on vaccination / extracted from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, and re-published by order of the gentlemen who super-intend the Cow-Pock Institution, in Sackville Street, Dublin. [Anon].

Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A review of Mr. Brown's work on vaccination / extracted from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, and re-published by order of the gentlemen who super-intend the Cow-Pock Institution, in Sackville Street, Dublin. [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/18 (page 11)
    the phenomena, (p. 234); and that every old woman is equally capa¬ ble of ascertaining when vaccination is perfect as Dr Willan or Mr Bryce ; but that, if any practitioner has not had experience it variola¬ tion, “ he is incompetent either to conduct or judge of vaccination singly or comparatively,” (p. 236). While we hope and trust, that, in the next generation, thousands will be capable of conducting and judging of vaccination superlatively, who have no experience inva¬ riolation, let us see what advantages Mr Brown has derived from his boasted experience. <c In conformity, then, both with my own ex¬ perience of the phenomena of inoculation and vaccination, I con¬ tend, that if you have a vesicle, attended with an areola, you may depend npr n the production of whatever effects it (i, e. vaccination or variolation) is capable of,” p. 236. ; and a little before, cc nobody ever dreamed of reinoculation where the pustule and areola were ob¬ tained,” p. 236. If Mr Brown was satisfied with these proofs of con¬ stitutional affection from inoculation with small-pox matter, we must say, that he appears to have been very careless of the welfare of his pa¬ tients. We could quote numberless cases of pustules with an areola from inoculation not protecting the constitution against future small¬ pox; for example, those of Mr Dawson, Mr Kite, &c. ; but it is sufficient to refer the case of S. C. related in a note, page 303, of Mr Brown’s own book. Here we have in the subsequent constitutional small-pox an irre¬ fragable proof, that the preceding vaccination and variolation pro¬ duced only local affections; that, contrary to Mr Brown’s assertion, local cow-pox and local small-pox, even with a considerable areola, exist; and that, as he was ignorant of the difference between local and constitutional cow-pox, it is not at all surprising that his practice in vaccination should have been so unsuccessful. In like manner, he has admitted, as evidence of the occurrence of small pox, what every person, in the least acquainted with its phe¬ nomena, will at once reject. To give some col ur to his conside¬ ring the producti n of a local pustule as a proof of the deficiency of antivariolous powers, he roundly asserts, that it cannot be produced once in a thousand instances after previous small-pox, whether na¬ tural or inoculated, whereas, the reverse is so notori usly known to be the fact, that country practitioners have occasionally kept up a se¬ ries of local pustules on their wrists, to preserve a supply^ of recent variolous virus. Mr May has recorded a proof of the tact in his own person ; and Dr. Willan, speaking of the 10th figure of his first plate, says, <c The drawing was made from the inoculated arm of a young woman, who had the small-pox fourteen years before, in order to compare it with the appeaiances on the arm of my own son, when inoculated writh variolous matter three years after vaccination^ His pustules, however, so nearly resembled the above, that I thought a repetition of the drawing unnecessary.” If in none of Mr B’s cases, except perhaps the eleventh, the proofs of the production of constitutional small-pox be sufficient, what arc