Contagious and infectious diseases : measures for their prevention and arrest; small pox (variola); modified small pox (varioloid); chicken pox (varicella); cow pox (variolæ vaccinaæ); vaccination, spurious vaccination / prepared for the guidance of the quarantine officers and sanitary inspectors by Joseph Jones.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contagious and infectious diseases : measures for their prevention and arrest; small pox (variola); modified small pox (varioloid); chicken pox (varicella); cow pox (variolæ vaccinaæ); vaccination, spurious vaccination / prepared for the guidance of the quarantine officers and sanitary inspectors by Joseph Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    the minds of most of the farmers in this neighborhood, bnt has at length produced good consequences, and it seems probable from the precautions they are now disposed to adopt that the appearance of the cow-pox here may either be entirely extinguished or become extremely rare. Should it be asked whether this investigation be a matter of mere curiosity, or whether it tend to any benefical purpose, I should answer that, notwithstanding the happy effects of inoculation, with all the improvements which the practice has received since its first introduction into this country, it not very unfrequently produces deformity of the skin, and sometimes, under the best management, proves fatal. These circumstances must naturally create in every instance, some degree of painful solicitude for its consequences. But as I have never known fatal effects arise from the cow- pox, even when impressed in the most unfavorable manner, producing extensive inflam- mations and suppurations on the hands, and as it clearly appears that this disease leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection of the small-pox, may we not infer that a mode of inoculation may be introduced preferable to that at present adopted, especially among those families, which, from previous circumstances, we may judge to be predisposed to have the disease unfavorably ? It is an excess in the number of pustules which we chiefly dread in the small-pox; but, in the cow-pox, no pustules appear, nor does it seem possible for the contagious matter to produce the disease from effluvia, or by other means than contact, and that probably not simply between the virus and the cuticle, so that a single individual in a family might at any time receive it without the risk of infecting the rest, or of spreading a distemper that fills a country with terror. Several instances have come under my observation which justify the assertion that the disease cannot be propagated by effluvia. The first boy whom I inocu- lated with the matter of cow-pox slept in a bed, while the experiment was going for- ward, with two children who never had gone either through that disease or the small- pox without infecting either of them. A young woman who had the cow-pox to a great extent, several sores which maturated having appeared on the hands and wrists, slept in the same bed with a fellow dairy maid who never had been infected with either the cow-pox or the small-pox, but no indisposi- tion followed. Another instance has occurred of a young woman on whose hands were several large suppurations from the cow-pox, who was at the same time a daily nurse to an infaut, but the complaint was not communicated to the child In some other points ot view the inoculation of this disease appears preferable to the variolous inoculation. In constitutions predisposed to scrofula how frequently we see the inoculatedsmall-pox rouse into activity that distressful malady. This circumstance does not seem to depend on the manner in which the distemper has shown itself, for it has as frequently hap- pened among those who have had it mildly as when it appeared in the contrary way. There .are many who, from some peculiarity in the habit, resist the common effects of variolous matter inserted into the skin, and who are in consequence haunted through life with the distressing idea of being insecure from subsequent infection. A ready mode of dissipating anxiety originating from such a cause must now appear obvious. And, as we have seen that the constitution may at any time be made to feel the febrile attack of cow-pox, might it not, in many chronic diseases, be introduced into the sys- tem, Avith the probability of affording relief upon well known physiological principles?* Although J say the system may at any time be made to feel the febrile attack of cow- pox, yet I have a single instance before me where the virus acted locally only, but it is not in the least probable that the same person would resist the action both of the cow- pox virus and the variolous. Elizabeth Sarseuet lived as a dairy maid at Newpark farm, in this parish. All the cows and the servants employed in milking had the cow-pox, but this woman, though she had several sores upon her fingers, felt no tumors in the axilla, nor any general in- disposition. On being afterwards casually exposed to variolous infection she had the small-pox in a mild way.t Hannah Pick, another of the dairy maids, who was a fellow servant with Elizabeth Sarsenet, when the distemper broke out at the farm, was at the same time infected, but this young woman had not only sores upon her hands, but felt herself also much indis- posed for a day or two. After this, I made several attempts to give her the small-pox by inoculation, but they all proved fruitless. From the former case, then, we see that the animal economy is subject to the same laws in one disease as the other. The following case, which has very lately occurred, renders it highly probable that not only the heels of the horse, but other parts of the body of that'animal, are capable of generating the virus which produces the cow-pox. ' *Inocnlatiori in a common May upon the arm will seldom produce this effect, When the disease takes place among the dairy people, the virus comes in coutact with pre-existing sores, which does not fail t« produce an irritation that affects the system generally. tThia will be more satisfactorily explained in the sequel.