Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

course were subject to inscrutable modification in transmission from arm to arm: it is the distinct sources we

have to recognise. A patient intent on vaccination might have said to himself, Which shall it be? Shall I be cowpoxed? or, shall I be horsepoxed? or, shall I be horsepoxed cowpoxed? How such an inquirer would have been answered had he set his perplexity before his medical adviser, I can only conjecture. Probably he

would have been rebuked for his intrusion into matters outside his province. The little girl who quenched the scepticism of her comrade with the dictum, "It is so, for "ma says so; and if it is'nt so, it is so, if ma says so," illustrates the manner of rebuff administered to those who pry into professional mysteries. It is for you to pay and for us to think is a formula by no means limited to ecclesiastics.

SMALLPOX COWPOX.

Jenner was pleased to describe cowpox as a mild form of smallpox; but for what reason, outside his pleasure, he did not explain. Nevertheless the suggestion has borne fruit. When virus has fallen short, it has been asked, Why, if cowpox be mild smallpox, should not cows be inoculated with smallpox, and a crop of virus be raised? Various such attempts have been made, in which Mr. Badcock of Brighton has been especially distinguished. Mr. John Simon, writing in 1857, said, "Mr. "Badcock, from 1840 to the present time, has again and "again derived fresh stocks of vaccine lymph from cows "artificially infected by him; having vaccinated with such "lymph more than 14,000 persons, and having forwarded supplies of it to more than 400 medical practitioners.' When it is remembered that virus for half a dozen or more vaccinations is taken from a single arm, and that this process of reproduction is repeated every week, some idea may be formed of the extent to which this smallpox cowpox has been diffused over the country.

[ocr errors]

The original assertion that vaccination conferred lifelong immunity from smallpox was unwillingly abandoned

under stress of experience, until no respectable practitioner pretended that the rite afforded more than a partial or temporary security. In promotion of smallpox cowpox, however, Jenner's most extravagant claims were revived. In Mr. Simon's words, for the recipient of smallpox cowpox, "Neither renewed vaccination, nor "inoculation with smallpox, nor the closest contact and "co-habitation with smallpox patients, will occasion him "to betray any remnant of susceptibility to infection." Untrue even of variolation, it is unnecessary to controvert such a figment: it suffices to place it on record.

The hypothesis was, that smallpox inoculated on the cow lost somewhat of its virulence; but if so, why should not such cowpox inoculated on man resume its virulence? We are apt to forget that the nature of things is not controlled by our wishes, and that our interest in the conversion of smallpox into cowpox, and its maintenance as cowpox, is no warrant for fulfilment. I may also remark that though smallpox cowpox has entered so largely into currency, there is no evidence to what extent it has displaced the preceding issues of horsegrease cowpox, cowpox and horsepox. So far as we know, they are all existent in the cominon blood, indistinguishable, the stronger surviving, the weaker dying out: nobody knows, nor can know.

CONDEMNATION OF SMALLPOX COWPOX.

That smallpox cowpox is in any sense cowpox is, however, widely disputed, much confidence being placed in the researches of the Lyons Commission in 1855, presided over by M. Chaveau. This Commission, says Dr. Charles Cameron, "proved incontestably that small“pox can no more be converted into cowpox by passing it "through a cow than by stunting an oak it can be con"verted into a gooseberry bush." Cowpox, it is held, is a disease of the cow, with no relation to smallpox. The vesicles of each may be apparently identical, as are the vesicles excited by the application of tartar emetic; but that is no proof of essential identity. According to Dr.

George Wyld, "Smallpox inoculation of the heifer pro"duces not vaccinia, but a modified smallpox, capable of "spreading smallpox among human beings by infection; " and Dr. Cameron boldly attributes the recent increase of smallpox to the use of smallpox cowpox for vaccination.

Nor is Dr. Cameron singular in this opinion. Some time ago, the Galway Guardians ran short of virus for vaccination, when it was proposed to inoculate a calf with smallpox. As soon as the Local Government Board in Dublin became aware of the project, it was forbidden. Why? Here is the deliverance of the Secretary"Because smallpox virus taken from the calf would "communicate that disease to the human subject, and be "thereby a fertile source of propagating the disease; and "would, moreover, render the operator liable to prosecu"tion under the Act prohibiting inoculation with small"pox." Thus the virus current in England, and credited with miraculous virtue by Simon, is denounced as dangerous and its use unlawful in Ireland!

COWPOX REVIVED.

The constant disasters of vaccination, the certain and suspected communication of human diseases with the virus propagated from arm to arm, have induced a wide resort to cowpox under the designation of "animal "vaccination," in contempt of the fact that disease in cattle is as rife as among men, and inoculable. Still the dread of the invaccination of syphilis is so intense, and so justifiable, that other risks are encountered if that may be avoided.

This cowpox is commended as "pure lymph from the calf," a sweet periphrase with a savour of Daphne and Chloe, of Flora and the country green-a periphrase used in craft or ignorance, "pure lymph" being as incapable of producing vaccinia as pure milk or pure saliva. The prescription takes us back to Jenner's time and Jenner's procedure. As has been said, the Gloucestershire dairymaids believed that after cowpox they were safe from smallpox, and that Jenner was much impressed

with their belief until he discovered that it was untrue. Had he found it true, he might have advertised the prophylactic thirty years in advance of the publication of his Inquiry; but if anything was certain, this was certain, that cowpox did not avert smallpox. Satisfied that cowpox per se was of no avail against smallpox, he defined a variety of cowpox generated by the application of horsegrease, to which he was pleased to ascribe sovereign efficacy. Why, I ask, did he discriminate and prescribe that variety of cowpox if cowpox per se was effective? The question answers itself. I will not say the cowpoxers treat Jenner's evidence with disrespect; for such is their ignorance, that I question if they are aware of its existence; moreover, that which is undesirable to know, is instinctively avoided and kept out of sight. They recommend their "lymph" as wonderfully mild, being attended with no erysipelas, the pest of arm-to-arm vaccination -- a description that tallies exactly with Jenner's of impotent cowpox. The pustules," says Jenner, "are of a much milder nature than those of horsegrease cowpox. "No erysipelas attends them, and "they are incapable of producing any specific effect on "the human constitution."

[ocr errors]

A COWPOX CHARLATAN.

"

Yet, incredible as it may appear, it is with the praise of this impotent cowpox, attended with no erysipelas, that the public have been deafened, and for which the most extravagant assertions are made. Dr. Martin, one of the chief producers and vendors of the article, appeared at the British Medical Association in 1881, saying, "I am called upon at times, at the very "shortest notice, to vaccinate whole cities; and when I "left America, I had just completed the vaccination of "the city of New Haven. The custom is to send for me, "or my son, wherever smallpox breaks out, with orders. "to vaccinate at once the entire population of the city, "town, or neighbourhood. It is done immediately, the

result being that an epidemic is completely stopped in " a week."

Thus spoke the charlatan, with the acquiescence of the medical assembly. When churchmen deplore the scepticism of the age, and the decay of faith, it is to be observed that the habit of mind is limited to certain modes of opinion, and that in general we are as credulous as ever. Human nature in its structure is curiously immutable. Wherein is the advantage to disbelieve in witchcraft and to believe that epidemics of smallpox can be stopped with cowpox?

A DECOROUS UNANIMITY.

Such are the leading varieties of virus used for vaccination-starting with Jenner's horsegrease cowpox, then cowpox, then horsepox, then smallpox cowpox, and finishing with cowpox revived; each of them inscrutably modified in transit from child to child and from beast to beast. We are continually hearing of miracles wrought by vaccination in the past and present -especially the past, at home and abroad-especially abroad, the assumption being that vaccination is, and has been, everywhere the same. On the contrary, the condition precedent to serious consideration of any vaccine miracle is a definition of the variety of vaccination practised. It is, we admit, convenient for the administrators of the rite that it should pass for uniform, however multiform; for the practice has become a great and lucrative business-a world-wide poll-tax; and whatever the internal differences of the priesthood, it is their obvious interest to exhibit a decorous unanimity in presence of their customers. Hence the uneasiness recently excited by indiscreet advocates of "pure lymph "from the calf" has been judiciously allayed, not by resistance, but by concession and damnation with faint praise; the commercial instinct dictating caution, for if the public did get behind the professional screen, and discovered the mysteries of pox, what might not befall the craft of vaccination!

« ПредишнаНапред »