copious details concerning the mode in which this object so dear to his heart was effected; as also concerning the persons chiefly instrumental in carrying his views into effect. Many of these details possess great interest, especially those which concern the introduction of cow-pox into the great continent of Asia (p. 420); but we have no space for them here. Suffice it to say, that the late Dr. Gregory had the merit of introducing vaccination into Scotland, through the medium of Sir Matthew Tierney. Dr. Waterhouse undertook to introduce it into America, and by his perseverance and talents, fully succeeded in doing so about the year 1800. The earliest supporter of vaccination on the continent of Europe was Dr. De Carro of Vienna, whose exertions in the cause are beyond all praise. To him our Indian possessions are indebted for the introduction of the vaccine. Dr. Sacco, of Milan, distinguished himself not merely as an active propagator of the new practice in Italy, but by his pathological inquiries into the origin of cow-pox.

Dr. Baron dedicates one chapter of his book to a detail of the events connected with the first parliamentary grant to Dr. Jenner. A committee was appointed to examine and report upon Dr. Jenner's claims for public remuneration. Witnesses pro and con were examined. It was stated, that a farmer of the name of Jesty had actually inoculated his wife and children with cow-pock matter in 1774, and that a Mrs. Rendall had caused five of her children to play with the teat of a cow to secure them from small-pox; but this, as Dr. Baron observes, never advanced the cause of vaccination beyond what popular rumour had already done. Dr. Jenner's merit consisted in this, that he divested popular tradition of its obscurity and uncertainty, and gave the aspect of science to what was formerly vague and valueless. A pretty illustration of that kind of merit which belongs to Jenner is given by Dr. Baron, at p. 562. A fish was preparing for dinner in the kitchen of a medical man, and was accidentally placed on a table in connexion with two metals. The fish was thrown into convulsions. The doctor recorded the circumstance, published an account of it, and there the matter ended. The same sort of thing afterwards occurred in the laboratory of Galvani. He set himself to investigate the phenomenon, and the genius which this effort displayed was soon rewarded by a rich harvest of discovery. But to return to the Committee of the House of Commons, whom we left discussing Dr. Jenner's claims. They considered him well entitled to 20,000l., but Mr. Bankes, the Joseph Hume

of those days, would not agree to more than ten. A vote for ten thousand pounds in favour of Dr. Jenner, passed the House on the 2d June 1802, by a majority of three.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that very few real improvements in the practice of vaccination have been introduced since the discovery was first announced. One of the most important was the practicability of propagating the disease by scabs, for which we are indebted to Mr. Bryce of Edinburgh. Of the value of this addition to our knowledge concerning cow-pox, Dr. Jenner was fully sensible, but he attached comparatively little importance to the test, as it is called, recommended by that gentleman, and known to vaccinators by his name. In this opinion we think Jenner fully borne out, as we have never been able to convince ourselves that that supposed test furnishes any evidence of the degree to which the constitution is affected. This still remains a great desideratum. A very effectual mode of preserving lymph for the use of distant countries, was invented by two German physicians, and is detailed at p. 430.

Honours began to pour in upon Dr. Jenner from the year 1801. The Dowager Empress of Russia sent him, in that year, a ring set in diamonds. The Royal Society of Madrid elected him an honorary member; &c. &c. With a notice of these blushing honours Dr. Baron's first volume concludes. It is far from our intention to anticipate the contents of that which is to come, but it may be satisfactory to our readers, to have one or two dates, by way of filling up the picture. In 1807 parliament reconsidered its former vote, and granted to Dr. Jenner an additional sum of twenty thousand pounds. In the following year, vaccination was taken under the protection of government. The National Vaccine Establisliment was at first placed under the immediate direction of Dr. Jenner, but difficulties ensued, and Dr. Jenner resigned. During the latter years of his life, he continued to devote a great deal of his time to the subject of vaccination, but he did not publish any thing of much importance concerning it after the period to which Dr. Baron brings down his life. He died at Berkeley, in February 1823, suddenly, of apoplexy, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. A statue has been erected to his memory in his native county, but, hitherto, no adequate testimonial of national approbation has been bestowed. An anxious wish was expressed by many of the admirers of his genius, that his remains should be deposited in Westminster Abbey,

with the distinguished of the land, and government were well disposed to accede to their wishes, but for some reason it was thought unadvisable, and his body lies in the chancel of the parish church in Berkeley.

We have now gone through the task which we first proposed to ourselves,-that of giving a brief sketch of the principal events in Dr. Jenner's life. It remains that we offer a few criticisms on the different speculative topics discussed, often at great length, in Dr. Baron's work; and for the sake of brevity, as well as perspicuity, we shall take them up in the following order :-1. The antiquity of smallpox. 2. The common origin of human and epizootic maladies; the identity of cow-pox and small-pox; and the equine origin of the former. 3. The possibility of exterminating small-pox. 4. The causes of vaccine failure.

1. Of the antiquity of small-pox.-This is one of the thorny points in medical literature, with which Dr. Baron boldly grapples, and a whole chapter is devoted to its discussion. It is not made to appear, however, that the opinions here delivered were really those of Dr. Jenner. We would suggest, therefore, to the author, the propriety of separating these details, in a subsequent edition, from the body of the work, and of throwing them, with some others of a similar kind, into an appendix. This will be a great relief to the general reader, without impairing the value of the work to the inquiring physician. Dr. Baron supports the opinion of the late Dr. Willan, that the small-pox is a disease of great antiquity, and that it is to be traced in the earliest writings of the Hebrews and Greeks. He gives us an abstract of the plague of Athens, as described by Thucydides, and adds, "in this quotation from the original, will be found, if I mistake not, as accurate an account of the leading symptoms of variola as could possibly be expected from any historian not medical." With all deference, we do think the author is mistaken here. We know of no disease, the prominent characters of which could be so easily described by an unprofessional man, as small-pox. But it is clear from what the historian says, that he watched the symptoms of the complaint, not superficially, but very closely, and he describes, in our judgment, with great accuracy, a petechial typhus, or, perhaps, cynanche maligna. According to Dr. Baron, small-pox was seen by Hippocrates, and commented upon by Galen, but it requires a great stretch of ingenuity to trace in their writings any of the peculiar features of this disease. Rhazes, the Arabian, the first ac

knowledged writer on the small-pox, struggles hard to prove that Galeh had seen it; but even he, with all his enthusiasm for his master, was sadly puzzled to account for the unwonted brevity and inaccuracy of his description. This, we think, is of itself decisive of the question; but when we further call to mind the recorded opinions of the best modern writers who have devoted their attention to the history of physic, we mean Friend and Mead, we confess we have no hesitation whatever on the subject. We regret that Dr. Baron should have supported this side of the question, as by some it may be considered (however undeservedly) as an impeachment of the general accuracy of Dr. Jenner's views,

The first notices of a disease which exhibits the wellmarked features of small-pox, are to be met with in the historical writings of Procopius, who flourished during the reign of Justinian the First. The obscurity of its origin, the difficulty of its cure, the universality of its devastations, and above all, the complete immunity from second attacks, bespeaks this epidemic to have been truly smallpox. It began A. D. 544, and was reported to have been brought to Constantinople from Ethiopia. This corresponds closely with the era commonly assigned in medical books to the first appearance of small-pox; viz., A.D. 568, when the Abyssinian army, under Abrahah the viceroy, besieged Mecca. Without going, therefore, deeply into historic details of little general interest, we may say that smallpox first appeared in the East about the middle of the sixth century.

2. The next topic which we have set down for consideration, is, the common origin of human and epizootic maladies. This curious but uninviting branch of medical science was a favourite subject of speculation with Dr. Jenner; and, accordingly, repeated allusions are made to it in the work before us. In the first volume of the Transactions of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, there is a paper by Dr. Jenner, on the distemper in dogs, a contagious disease not communicable to man. There are certain other epidemic maladies, however, which affect equally man and the brute creation, of which the most important is, according to Dr. Jenner, that which in its most malignant form we call small-pox, and in its milder forms chicken-pox, swine-pox, and cow-pox. It is, undoubtedly, a matter, not of mere curiosity, but of serious reflection, that in their nomenclature of certain diseases, the vulgar seem to have acknowledged this doctrine of a common origin to human and epizootic epide

mics. How else did the terms chicken-pox and swine-pox creep into our language. "In Bengal," says Dr. Jenner, (p. 237) "the poultry are subject to an epidemic eruption, which kills them by hundreds. The natives have only one name for this disease and the small-pox, gootry." "A traditionary account is handed down to us by the Arabian physicians, that the small-pox was originally derived from the camel." (P. 522; Letter from Dr. Jenner to H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence.) We have an account at p. 238, of some children who were inoculated at Madrid in March 1804, by order of the king of Spain, with a goat-pock. We are not favoured, however, with the result of the test-trials, or contra-proofs as they are called by the professor Heydeck.

"It seems certain, then," says Dr. Baron (p. 243), "that there are at least four animals, namely, the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the goat, which are affected by a disorder communicable to man, and capable of securing him (to a certain degree at least) from what appears to be a malignant form of the same disease." Into the many illustrations given of this position we cannot here, of course, enter; but our readers will gather from the remarks now offered some ideas of the reasoning by which Dr. Jenner was induced to experiment on the influence of cow-pox. The sum of his doctrine was briefly this. He not only considered small-pox and cow-pox as essentially the same disease, but he imagined" that the former was only a malignant variety of the latter, the parental root being the cow-pox." (p. 357.) This notion of the identity of cow-pox and small-pox, so frequently urged by Jenner, and so pointedly marked by his phrase variola vaccina, has been much questioned in later times, and a few observations upon it may not be misplaced. Diseases that mutually produce each other are clearly referrible to the same source. The identity of swine-pox and small-pox is, therefore, generally admitted. Dr. Adams, however, entertained the opinion, that by successive inoculations with a mild matter, a permanent modification of small-pox might ultimately be obtained, and he actually persuaded himself that he had succeeded in the attempt. He called the disease pearl-pox, and it appears to have been intermediate between cow-pox and distinct small-pox. Some notion of the same kind probably influenced Jenner, when, in 1789, he inoculated his eldest son with the matter of swine-pock. The child took a mild and modified disease, and resisted the future action of variolous matter. Dr. Jenner seems to have retained the same opinion as late as