An appendix to the Popular summary of vaccination : comprising experiments with small pox virus upon the cow, and further remarks on the practice of cow pox / by John Marshall.

  • Marshall John M.R.C.S fl., 1800-1830.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appendix to the Popular summary of vaccination : comprising experiments with small pox virus upon the cow, and further remarks on the practice of cow pox / by John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and others, theoretical cases are published, which have been figured in the study, free from truth and experience, but reprehensibly de- signed for betraying the unsuspicious. Such measures stint the advancement of science by fading the growth of its fruit. In the year 1829, at one of the evening meetings so generously given to the faculty and literary members of learned institutions, by the Royal College of Physicians, under the patronage of its learned President, Sir Henry Halford, Bart, and the rest of its enlightened Fellows, a very interesting and elegantly written paper on vaccination, was read from the rostrum by the Registrar, Dr. I Maehmichael. By the liberal permission of the President, I have not only been honoured by the loan of this classical document, but also permitted to cull the following partial extract, which is closely allied to the subject:— “ But a letter from India, with the perusal of which I was favoured yesterday, contains the following remarkable statement, which seems to me deserving the greatest attention :— “ It appears that from the vaccine matter having lately failed in Egypt, in a great many instances, medical gentlemen were led to institute certain experiments, by which it has been discovered, that by inoculating a cow with small-pox matter from the human body, fine active vaccine virus is produced. At the time the letter was written, there was a Greek child at Mocha that had been success- fully vaccinated with matter direct from the cow, produced as above mentioned ; and the virus taken from its pustules had acted with the best effect on several other children at Suez, where former attempts had failed.” “ Now if this shall be found upon further trial to be really true, it will prove one of the most important facts connected with this interesting subject, for henceforth we need no longer fear that we may be deprived of the means of combating the small-pox, since that baneful contagion will furnish its own antidote. A question may fairly be asked, what cause can have given rise to , the paradox, that vaccine lymph “ has lately failed in Egypt in a