The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-04-05
About Vaccination.


Edward Jenner the discOverer Of vac
cination was born in England in 1749,
He was apprenticed to doctor and af-
forwards came to London. After taking
his diploma, be returned to his native
place, and it was here that he practiced
his profession, and also made that great
discovery which has proved such an in
estimable benefit to mankind. His life
sped TRANQUILITY on amidst the rustics
he loved. go we'll until the year 1923,
when death somewhat suddenly termi-
mated his earthly career.
As the village and neighborhood in
which Jenner served his apprenticeship
was mostly grazing country, he was
thrown much amongst farmers and their
servants. AT time when smallpox was
raging among them, his attention was
attracted by hearing a milkmaid say
that she had once caught cowpox from
the cows, and therefore smallpox would
not hurt her. He was much struck
with this remark; and on making in
quiries, he found 1t was a common belief
about there, that whoever caught this
disease from the COW was not liable to
take smallpox.
With that talent for close observation
aud investigation which distinguished
him, he pondered much over this re-
mark of the milkmaid's, and by careful
experiments elaborated the great life
orrra NhnN - L
disseminated from one human being to
another to the almost total extinction of
smallpox.
The eastern practice of incubation
was first made known in England by
Lady Wortley Montagu, who was the
wife of an ambassador at Constantinople
where she had seen it tried with good
effect. incubation consisted in trans.
ferriDg the matter of the smallpox pus.
tule from the body of one suffering from
the disease 10 that of one not as vet
afflicted by the disease. 1t is fact that
the form of small pOx thus communicated
through the skin was less severe, and
consequently less fatal, than when taken
naturally, as was abundantly proved.
But, unfortunately, inocuIated small
pox was. as infectious as the natural
smallpOx--this fact forming the great
distinction between incubation and vac
cinatioD. The inoculated person became
center of infection and communicated
it to many others.
Ii was on the 14th Of May, 1864
day which is still commemorated in parts
of Germany as a festival-that a bow
was vaccinated with matter taken from
the hands of a milkmaid The disease
was thus communicated to the boy, and
he passed through it satisfactorily. But
now came the anxious. critical tine for
Jenner. The same boy on the lst of
July following was inocculated with the
smallpox virus. but he did not take the
disease. In 1898 Jenner published his
first pamphlet on the subject. and later,
IN the first year of the present century,
be wrote that il was too manifest to ad-
NIT OF controversy, that the humiliation
of the smallpox, the most dreadful
scourge OF the human species, must be
the final result of this practice"
Soon after this, parliamentary COM
mlttee Investigated and reported on the
discovery in terms of the most emphatic
appreciation; and declaration was
signed by seventy of the chief physicians
and surgeons in London expressing their
confidence in il.
-Jenner's essay which explained his dis
covery had in the meantime been trans
lated into several foreign languages, and
had also found its way to America,
where President Jefferson vaccinated. by
the help of his sons in-law, about two
hundred of his friends and neighbors.
From this time forward. vaccination NAV
be said to have taken firm hold of the
civilized world.