Vaccination vindicated against misrepresentation and calumny, in a letter to his patients / by Edward Jones.

  • Jones, Edward.
Date:
1805
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vaccination vindicated against misrepresentation and calumny, in a letter to his patients / by Edward Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    proved fatal. In my own practice I have to lament the loss of two patients out of about two hundred;— in a much greater number of vaccinated patients I never had one to occasion me the least uneasiness. My friend Mr. Jones, of Pool, who has practiced medicine about half a century, says, between the severity of the two diseases there is no kind of com- parison;—he has often seen inoculation fatal; he has much oftener seen it excite into action the latent seeds of scrophula; producing obstinate inflamma- tions of the eyes, abCesses and ulcers difficult to heal, and sometimes caries and exfoliation of the bones: such effects he has never known to have been the consequence of cow-pox; indeed he has never witnessed a case in the least degree trouble- some. The evidence of patients on this subject is seldom admissible, as they are apt to refer effects to causes between which there is not the slightest con- nection. The following instance may serve as an exampleA woman, whose children I had vacci- nated, complained to me some months afterwards thht her children had never been well since, and attributed their complaints to the cow-pox. When I was informed that these complaints were the measles and hooping-cough I could not forbear smiling at the good Lady's simplicity. Inconclusive as such testimony necessarily must be, Dr. Squirrel yet lays great stress upon it, and adduces it to over- turn the evidence on which the House of Commons thought right to reward Dr. Jenner with the most honourable distinction, by giving him the sum often thousand pounds as a recompence for his benevo- lent and successful exertions in the cause of huma- nity. All the world agree that the reward was inadequate to the service. I think you will find the following to be a faith- ful summary of the evidence brought forward on this occasion:— caiStff1^vthJ„C0W?0X !s, a mild local disease: and indeed c?m scaicely be saul to deserve the name of disease. 2d, It