The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-10
4 CENTURY OF VACCINATION.
of
small Had
Away 5o,oooO 0oofth Worlds PopuIati

The 18th of May 1885, is the centenary
of the first recorded vaccination for small
pcx, and to Edward Jenner, an English
country surgeon, the world owes this
priceless &. t. To appreciate the value
Of this wonderful discovery, we should
recall the history of the ravages of small
pox before the time of Jenner.
Smallpox, so described that we can dis
tnguish it from other epidemic diseases,
such az the plague, first appeared in the
beginning of the seventh century. Its
Immediate dissemination through the
world is ascrbed to the disbanding OF
the great armies that followed or fought
with Mahomet and his successors. Ac-
cording TO one authority one-fourth of the
people OF the known world persisted dur
ing this visitation and it has reappeared
IN epidemics more or less disastrous ever
since. The oldest medical treatise on the
subject now eXIani, was written by an Ar
ban physician named khazes in the tenth
century. InlS work on smallpox and
measles gives fun accounts of its symp-
toms, pathology and treatment. 1t has
been translated into many languages and
III the course OF nearly four hundred
years, has passed through more than
thlrty-flve editions Smallpox was
known in England in the thirteenth CEN
tury, and spread to America soon after
tA--S Guilty was SGlNleU. II ISdCueQ hSA-
CO IN l52f destroying an immense number
OF the inhabitants, was equally fatal in
quito and Brazil. Iceland in 1861 lost
more than third of its population, and
IN Greenland in 1884 two-thirds of the
people died. In the century preceding
the discovery OF vaccination IL is estimat-
ed that 5O,OOU,OG0 people died from il. 1t
spared no rank or condition of life. Louis
.AN died OF it, and in Pepps diary we
read that the Duke of Gloucester died of
1t through the negligence of the doc
tors Among The statistics OF mortality
IN different countries we ind that in
France one in ten died, in Sweden every
TENTH boy and every ninth girl, in Lon
don one out of SIX.
The first check to the disease in Euro
pean countries was given by Lady Mary
Mortley Montagu, who introduced into
England, from Turkey, the practice of
incubation. During her residence in
Turkey, being the wife of the English
ambassador she became greatly interest
ed Ia this prophylactic treatment and thus
describes 1t in letter from Adrianople:
The smallpox so fatal and so general
amongst US is here entirely harmless by
the invention of migrating, which is the
women who make it their business 10 per-
form the operation every autumn, in the
month OF September, when the great heat
is aDated. People send to one another 10
know if any OF their family has a mind
10 have the smallpox; they make parties
Tor this purpose, and when they are met
commonly fifteen or sixteen together),
the ola woman comes with nut shell
full of the matter of the best sort OF
smallpox, and asks what veins you please
TO have opened. She Immediately rips
open that you offer to her with large
needle which gives you no more pain than
a common scratch, and puts into the vein
as much venom as can lie upon the head
of a needle, and after binds up the little
wound with hollow bit of shell; and in
this manner opens four or five veins.
The children or young parents play
together AL the rest of the day, and are
in perfect health TO the eighth Then the
fever begins to seize them, and they
keep their beds two days, very seldom
three, and in eight days time they are as
well as before their Illness. They have
rarely above twenty or thirty pits in their
faces, which never mark. Every year
thousands undergo this operation; and
the French ambassador says pleasantly
that they take the smallpox here by way