Memoir of Edward Jenner, M.D. : From Dr. Lettsom's Oration, delivered before the Medical Society of London, on the 8th of March, 1804 / [John Coakley Lettsom].

  • Lettsom, John Coakley, 1744-1815.
Date:
[1804]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir of Edward Jenner, M.D. : From Dr. Lettsom's Oration, delivered before the Medical Society of London, on the 8th of March, 1804 / [John Coakley Lettsom]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MEMOIR- ok EDWARD JENNER, M. D. From. Dr. LeTtsom’s Oration, delivered before the Medical Society of London, ' —■ on the 8th of March, 1804. . IT i$ unneceffary to apprize you, Gentlemen, that an oration is delivered A annually on this day, by a Fellow of this Society, elefted in the pre¬ ceding year to difeharge this important duty. Our learned affociate,' Dr. Walker, was appointed for the prefent anniverfary; but ficknefs has fudr dcr.Iy intervened, and prevented him from perfecting his defign, and us in a particular jnarfher from the plealure and inftru&ion which its communi¬ cation muft have conveyed to a liftening auditory. Whilft you fympathife with me on the painful neceffity of his abfence, I hope you will permit me to claim your indulgence for accepting, on the prefent emergency, this Chair, which ought to have been filled by a Phyfician much more able to aired your attention and to enfure your approbation. This Society, imprelfecl with a juft fenfc of the importance of preventing, the fatality of the fmall-pox, by vaccine inoculation, dilcovered by one of our very early members, Dr. Edward Jenner, laudably and' unanimoufly voted h im a gold medal, to be delivered on the prefent anniverfary; and, however unworthy of the appointment, 1 complied with the requeft of iny learned colleagues. In reverting to the difeovery of the Cow-pock, its hiftory muft appear to you to have been already exhaufted; neverfhelefs, as the whole merit of the difeovery is unqueftionably due to a Member of this Society, it is equally flattering to our pride, and becoming our gratitude, to comme¬ morate an event in which our honour is implicated, augmented, and, I truft, immortalized. It is to be lamented, even at this period, that fome of the moft intereft- ing difeoveries in the hiftory of the arts are fcarcely known to us by any accurate record, which affdrds a very fufficient excufe for the liberty I take in requefting your indulgence to the following narration: Thus the invention of the Mariner’s Compafs in 1302, by Flavio Givia, of Amalfi, near Naples, which enabled us to difeover a new hemifphere, is recorded by no written documents which might elucidate the progreftion of that department of fcience which led to this important difeovery in Europe. Nor can we now afeertain who was the inventor of gunpowder in 1330, by which fcience triumphed over bodily ftrength: we know, indeed, that- Swartz, a Cologne Monk, invented great guns in 1346; but are ignoranf of the circumftances which primarily gave rife to the difeovery. Even the art of printing, fo ufeful in recording events, and fo conve-1 nient in fpreading the knowledge of them, though aferibed to Lawrence Kofter, of Haerlem, in 1430, as well as to Mintel, of Strafburg, is fup- pofed to have been dilcovered at Mentz, in 1440, by Gutttenburg, Fauftus9 and Schaeffer, in conjun&ion. If this art has not fixed tiie date of its own origin, and the progrefs of fcience that brought it to light, it has happily prelerved the remembrance of the difeovery of the circulation of the blood throughout the whole body. Mich. Servatus, a French phyfician, firft publilhed his difeovery pf the circulation of the blood through the lungs in 1553.. Cifalpinus com¬ municated a vague account of the general circulation in 1569 ; but it was fully elucidated and confirmed by Harvey in 1619. By this brilliant dif¬ eovery,. health and ficknefs may be defined in thefe few words:—“ The one is a free, the other an obftru&ecl circulation.” But whilft the College of Phyficians annually commemorate their deceafed Collegian, may we