For the use of families : a plain and familiar treatise on the cow-pox, describing its origin, nature, and mode of inoculation, (with a plate,) whereby any person may distinguish the genuine from the spurious kind-- a distinction of the utmost importance : as the one kind renders the body unsusceptible of the infection of the common small-pox, whilst the other, having only a local effect, leaves it still liable to that baneful disease / extracted from the writings of Drs. Jenner [and others].

Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: For the use of families : a plain and familiar treatise on the cow-pox, describing its origin, nature, and mode of inoculation, (with a plate,) whereby any person may distinguish the genuine from the spurious kind-- a distinction of the utmost importance : as the one kind renders the body unsusceptible of the infection of the common small-pox, whilst the other, having only a local effect, leaves it still liable to that baneful disease / extracted from the writings of Drs. Jenner [and others]. 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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    having matter upon them may fix pustules upon the nose, lips, or eyelids, by rubbing them, where the skin is extremely thin. 6. The Cow-Pox in its natural state, when propagated from the teat of an infected cow to the milker’s hands, is capable of affecting the human species repeatedly, even to an indefinite number of times; but after the first application it is generally much milder in its symptoms;—thus it is evidently preferable, to get the matter from a human subject, rather than from the cow. 7. The Small-Pox secures a person from ever having the genuine kindof Cow-Pox ; and the Cow-Pox fortifies the body in the same degree, against the Small-Pox.—In both cases, there may afterwards be some casual pustules,from infectious matter being absorbed by the vessels on the surface of the body ;—the same as we often observe, upon the hands, arms, or breasts of nurses while attending upon children ill of the common Small- pox :—The disease is then merely local and confined to the pock—and though matter may be produced in the pock, yet the system does not seem to take it up, so as to produce the fever and indisposition. Hence also it arises—that when all the servants of the dairy have taken the infection from the Cows—such of them as have before had either the real Cow- Pox, or the common Small-Pox will not be indisposed, but will have the spuriousk'md ; while such as have never had either the real Cow-Pox, or the common Small-Pox, will be indisposed, and for a day or two be unable to attend to their work. 8. The medical journal No. 46, for 1802, gives the follow- ing very elegant and concise description of the disease, which embraces the whole of this chapter, and is compressible within a nut-shell.—“ It is a circumscribed, elevated, solitary vesicle, nearly circular at its basis ; having a regular smooth circumfer- ence, but is flattened in its apex ; surrounded about the l Oth day with an erysipelatous efflorescence; afterwards desiccating into a brownish, hard, glistening incrustation; which soon falls off, and leaves a cicatrix through life.”—But this language is not adapted to the generality of mankind. CHAP. V. The manner of performing the inoculation for the Cow-Pox. 1, rrpHE first thing is the choice of matter ; and it is to be feared, that errors have been frequently made in this respect by medical practitioners. For in the common Small- Pox, the matter taken is always thick and white like cream; but in the Cow-Pox, the matter must be thin, clear,'a and limpid like water. From the fifth to the ninth day after inocu- lation, if it be the genuine kind, the matter it fit for use:—It is thin and clear; but after that period it becomes thick and