hands foul from dressing the heels of horses afflicted with with what was called grease. With this grease they infected the cows, and the pox which followed was pronounced by Jenner to have all the virtue against smallpox which the dairymaids claimed for cowpox.

HORSEGREASE COWPOX.

According to Jenner, then, the dairymaids were right, and they were wrong. They were right when the pox they caught was derived from the horse through the cow; they were wrong when the pox they caught originated on the cow without the horse. He thus discriminated a double pox-cowpox of no efficacy against smallpox, and horsegrease cowpox of sure efficacy.

Further, in this connection, it is to be observed, that farriers believed that when they got poisoned in handling horses with greasy heels, they too, like the dairymaids, were safe from smallpox.

It is not therefore for cowpox, but for horsegrease cowpox that Jenner is answerable. In cowpox he had not, and could have no faith.

In 1798 Jenner published his famous Inquiry, a treatise much more spoken of than read, wherein he distinctly set forth the origin of his chosen prophylactic. It was not, I repeat, cowpox: it was horsegrease cowpox. He carefully discriminated it from spontaneous cowpox, which, he said, had no protective virtue, being attended with no inflammation and erysipelas, the essential sequences of inoculation with effective virus.

REJECTION OF JENNER'S PRESCRIPTION.

I have said that the world gave a cordial and unhesitating welcome to Jenner's revelation, but the observation requires a startling qualification. Jenner's revelation. as conveyed in his Inquiry was summarily and ignominiously rejected-was absolutely rejected. I wish to emphasise this point. Jenner published his Inquiry in order to recommend horsegrease cowpox, and what I have to say is, that the public declined to have anything.

to do with horsegrease cowpox. The origin of cowpox in horsegrease was scouted as an intolerable origin. It was disgusting. Why a diseased secretion from horses' heels should be more repulsive than a similar secretion from cows' teats was not explained; but, as we all know, there is no accounting for tastes. Various attempts were made to verify Jenner's prescription by inoculating cows with horsegrease, but they ended in failure-fortunately, it was said, in failure; for as Dr. Pearson (chief among primitive vaccinators) observed, "The very name of "horsegrease was like to have damned the whole thing.' What did Jenner do under these circumstances? Did he confront the public and assert the efficacy of horsegrease cowpox? Not he. He wanted money. He saw how the wind was blowing. He said not another word about horsegrease cowpox; and as the public were eager at any price to escape from the nuisance of smallpox inoculation, and disposed to substitute cowpox as a harmless substitute, why then he resolved to go in for cowpox, and pose as its discoverer and promoter.

JENNER'S TRANSFORMATION.

I am not making what is called a constructive charge against Jenner, but simply setting forth plain, undeniable matter-of-fact. I ask any one in doubt as to what I say to read Jenner's Inquiry, published in 1798, the prescription of which is horsegrease cowpox, and the condemnation of cowpox. Turn then to his petition for largess, addressed to the House of Commons in 1802, and what do we find? Not one word about horsegrease cowpox, but this audacious assertion:

"That your Petitioner has discovered that a disease "which occasionally exists in a particular form among "cattle, known by name of Cowpox, admits of being inoculated on the human frame with the most perfect ease "and safety, and is attended with the singularly beneficial effect of rendering through life the person so inoculated "perfectly secure from the infection of Smallpox."

Why, that was not Jenner's discovery! It was the

notion of the dairymaids, and, so far as concerned spontaneous cowpox, was known by Jenner to be untrue. Yet, strange to say, the claim was in a measure allowed by the House of Commons, and £10.000 awarded to the imposter, and subsequently £20,000 in 1807.

HORSEGREASE COWPOX KEPT OUT OF SIGHT.

As evidence of how completely Jenner's prescription of horsegrease cowpox was put out of sight, I may refer to the treatise of Dr. Willan On Vaccine Inoculation, published in 1806, wherein all that was thought important concerning the new practice was set forth; and although Jenner was freely cited, yet neither horsegrease nor horsegrease cowpox was referred to from the first page to the last. Instead, cowpox, after the fancy of the dairymaids, was exalted as the true prophylactic, apparently without a suspicion of its questionable character.

As I have said, Jenner not only offered no resistance to this amazing transformation, but conformed to it, and assumed the issue as his own. Since the public preferred cowpox to horsegrease cowpox, he saw no reason why he should object, especially as the same foolish public lusted after some one to worship for their deliverance from the plague of variolation. The world resounded with praises of the immortal Jenner, the saviour of mankind from smallpox. Enveloped in the smoke of such incense, it is scarcely surprising that the idol came to believe that his worshippers knew him better than he did himself.

SPURIOUS COWPOX.

The promise of vaccination, its absolute security and harmlessness, was speedily belied. The vaccinated caught smallpox; they fell sick after the operation; they were afflicted with eruptions and swellings; they died. These mishaps were at first denied-stoutly denied; and when denial was no longer possible, it was attempted to explain them away. The cowpox used could not have been genuine cowpox, but spurious; and for awhile spurious cowpox did yeoman's service in the way of

apology; but by-and-by the excuse began to work more harm than good. Mishaps were so numerous that people became afraid of this omnipresent spurious cowpox, and to ask what it was, and how it could be avoided. How can there be spurious pox? Whoever heard of spurious disease? Milkmen vend spurious milk, grocers spurious sugar, smashers spurious coin; but surely cows are not to be numbered with such malefactors as producers of spurious pox! The thing was absurd on its face, and absurd it proved. When Jenner was under examination by a committee of the College of Physicians in 1806, he was pressed hard for a definition of spurious cowpox, when he " owned up." He knew nothing of spurious cowpox. The words had been employed, not to describe any irregularity on the part of the cow, but certain irregularities in the action of cowpox on the part of the vaccinated which was to say that when the vaccinated recovered creditably and did not catch smallpox, the cowpox was genuine; but when the sequences were otherwise, why then it was spurious! Ingenious and convenient, was it not?

HORSE VIRUS VINDICATED.

Reverting to Jenner's suppression of the origin of cowpox in horsegrease, it may be suggested that he had changed his mind: but he had not changed his mind. As observed, various attempts were made to inoculate cows with horsegrease, and that these attempts were failures; but subsequent attempts were successful. Tanner, a veterinarian, of Rockhampton, Gloucestershire, succeeded to Jenner's complete satisfaction. Dr. Loy of Whitby dispensed with the cow altogether, and inoculated with horsegrease, or horsepox, producing vesicles identical with those of cowpox. The great success, however, in this line was reserved for Sacco of Milan. From the hand of a coachman poisoned with horsegrease he inoculated nine children, and from the virus thus engendered operated on every side. Writing to Jenner in 1803, Sacco said "It is now admitted and settled

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"that grease is the cause of vaccine, and we cannot too "soon alter the designation to equine." De Carro of Vienna received this equine from Sacco, and used it so freely and successfully among the Viennese, that, in his own words, it became impossible to say which of the citizens were equinated and which vaccinated.

What did Jenner make of these confirmations? He was adjudged mistaken in asserting that the cowpox good against smallpox was derived from horsegrease. Did he appeal with triumph to the evidence of Sacco, and say, "You thought me wrong, but see, I was right!" Not he. He kept silence. He consented to be treated as in error. He stood by and allowed cowpox to be used in which he had no confidence whatever. Nay more. He consented to be rewarded and honoured as the discoverer of a pox (which he did not discover) in which he was without faith, and had at the outset of his career expressly rejected and condemned. He recognised that it was expedient that the connection between horsegrease and cowpox should be denied. He had his bill to settle with the English people, and it was not for him to make difficulties. When, however, he had obtained all he could expect from public favour, and had got clear of London and the oppression of its savants, why then he resumed the expression of his original opinion; and still further, like Sacco of Milan, he dispensed with the cow, and inoculated straight from the horse. He supplied the National Vaccine Establishment with horse virus; he sent it to Edinburgh; he distributed it among his medical acquaintances; he described it as "the true and "genuine life-preserving fluid." What more need I say? Such was Jenner; such were his tactics; and whoever assumes his defence will assume a task in which he is not to be envied.

WHICH SHALL IT BE?

Jenner died in 1823, and at that date three kinds of virus were in use; first, cowpox from horsegrease or horsepox; second, cowpox; third, horsepox. These of