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.

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    Small-pox have been known in this country for a thousand years, and how long in other quarters of the world is uncertain; they are also universal; are a disease of the most severe, loath¬ some, and dangerous description ; highly contagious; and admitting of no other variety, but in the severity of their symptoms, and al¬ ways retaining their characteristic phenomena.—Whether propa¬ gated by contagion, or by inoculation, they almost uniformly produce considerable fever, and other distressing symptoms, which are also to a greater or Jess extent, followed with a characteristic pustular eruption.” But the immense superiority of cow-pox over small-pox these respects would be perfectly nugatory, if it did not protect us effectually and permanently against the latter disease. Mr. Bryce and the majority of the profession assert, that it does, and the public have the strongest possible proof of their sincerity, in the vaccination of their own children, and in the voluntary renuncii- tion of great professional emoluments, although Mr. Brown has thrown out an unintelligible insinuation, “ that the motives of its greatest advocates are not more disinterested than those of its greatest enemies.”—p. 8. One set of antivaccinists, on the contrary, contended, that the cow-pox had no antivariolous powers whatever. But the fallacy of this opinion has been abundantly proved by the immense num¬ ber of those vaccinated in all parts of the world, who have resist¬ ed repeated inoculation and exposure to small-pox infection, under circumstances the most favourable for its action. Another set, equally hostile to vaccination, but unable to con¬ trovert the fact just mentioned, alleged, that this security was merely temporary; at first they contended that it would wear out in the course of a year or two; and now, when this opinion also has been overthrown by experience, Mr. Brown, shuddering at the dreadful and distressing idea of <c what may not be the conse¬ quence, at the distance of twenty or thirty” years, extends the term of security to live or six years, when he says it will certainly ex¬ pire; and, after daily increasing experience shall have shewn that this opinion is as groundless as the former, another more provident antivaccinist may prolong the term to sixteen or sixty years. We shall state Mr. Brown’s creed in his own words, lest we should be accused of misrepresenting it, for we do not pretend always to understand him, and we are aware, that very different opinions are stated in other parts of his book. His inferences relating to this subject, from his experience in vaccination, are : cc 1. That they afford grounds for concluding, that the antivario¬ lous influence, directly after vaccination, is to be considered as nearly perfect. <c 2. That in proportion to the distance from'the period of vacci¬ nation, the antivariolous power is proportionally diminished;