"Dr. Lister, who was formerly physician to the Smallpox Hospital, attended the child with me, and he is convinced that it is not possible to give him the smallpox. I think the substituting the cow-pox poison for the smallpox promises to be one of the greatest improvements that has ever been made in medicine; and the more I think on the subject, the more I am impressed with its importance.
"With great esteem
"I am, etc., "HENRY CLINE.
"Lincoln's Inn Fields, August 2, 1798."
From communications, with which I have been favoured from Dr. Pearson, who has occasionally reported to me the result of his private practice with the vaccine virus in London, and from Dr. Woodville, who also has favoured me with an account of his more extensive inoculation with the same virus at the Smallpox Hospital, it appears that many of their patients have been affected with eruptions, and that these eruptions have maturated in a manner very similar to the variolous. The matter they made use of was taken in the first instance from a cow belonging to one of the great milk farms in London. Having never seen maturated pustules produced either in my own practice among those who were casually infected by cows, or those to whom the disease had been communicated by inoculation, I was desirous of seeing the effect of the matter generated in London, on subjects living in the country. A thread imbrued in some of this matter was sent to me, and with it two children were inoculated, whose cases I shall transcribe from my notes.
Stephen Jenner, three years and a half old.
3d day: The arm shewed a proper and decisive inflammation.
6th: A vesicle arising.
7th: The pustule of a cherry colour.
8th: Increasing in elevation. A few spots now appear on each arm near the insertion of the inferior tendons of the biceps muscles. They are very small and of a vivid red colour. The pulse natural; tongue of its natural hue; no loss of appetite or any symptom of indisposition.