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III. Observations respecting the Small-Pox and Inoculation in Eastern Countries; with some Account of the Introduction of Vaccination into India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2009

Whitelaw Ainslie
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Extract

There was a time, when to treat of the small-pox must have been a task truly painful; when, alas! little more could be done than to trace its devastations and its horrors: but, thanks to heaven and the perseverance of the benevolent, those days are long past, and the subject can at length be viewed in a very different light. Relieved from the distressing office of but too frequently having to offer a vain consolation to a virtuous mother sorrowing for the loss of a darling child, medical men can now speak of the disease with far other feelings; with the same satisfaction, to use a metaphor, that is felt in painting the blessings of an honourable peace, which have succeeded to a long and disastrous war; or the joy of a private family, which has finally risen into comfort and security, through a protracted struggle of domestic affliction.

Type
Papers Read Before the Society
Information
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1830 , pp. 52 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1830

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References

page 52 note * It would seem, however, that both Salmasius, and after him Johannes Hahn, a Dutch writer, had entertained a different opinion, and supposed that the disease had been described under another name (anthrax) by Hippocrates, and noticed by Celsus, Galen, and Ætius: a supposition so absurd, that it cannot for a moment be listened to.

page 52 note † See Mead's medical works, vol. i. p. 229; also Willan on the Diseases of the Skin, vol. i. pp. 251–252.

page 53 note * See Moore's excellent History of the Small-Pox, p. 23.

page 53 note † Tom. i. p. 244.

page 53 note ‡ At one of those ceremonies a man is suspended in the air by means of a cord run through the fleshy part of his loins. In this way he is whirled round at the extremity of a long pole. and at a great height from the ground.

page 53 note § This goddess is painted as a yellow woman sitting on a water-lily. Worship is offered at her shrine on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of the increasing moon; on the 10th the image is thrown into the water.—See Ward's View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindus, vol. i. p. 174,

page 54 note * See an account of an embassy to Thibet, by Captain Samuel Turner, in 1800, pp. 219–220.

page 54 note † See Woodville's History of the Small-Pox, vol. i. p. 2.

page 54 note ‡ Vide Medecin. Prac. System. Carol. Webster, edit, tom i. p. 288.

page 55 note * See History of the Small-Pox, page 76.

page 55 note † Dr. Woodville, however, from an examination of many books in the British Museum, states that he has reason to think the small-pox was known in our island long before the Crusade? began, in 1096.

page 55 note ‡ Garcia, Origin, p. 88, cited by Robertson in his History of America, vol. iii. p. 400.

page 55 note § See Robertson's History of America, book iii.

page 55 note ‖ Ibid, book iii.

page 55 note ¶ Grantz's History of Greenland, vol. i. p. 336.

page 56 note * Vide Rhazis de variolis et morbillis. Edit. Canning.

page 56 note † See Dr. Mason Good's “Study of Medicine, vol. ii. p. 619.

page 56 note ‡ Born at Winford Eagle in Dorsetshire, in 1621.

page 56 note § Born near Leyden, in 1668, and became the most celebrated medical writer and practitioner of his day.

page 56 note ‖ Vide Rhazis.

page 57 note * Vide Rhazis Contin. lib. xxiii. cap. 8.

page 57 note † Vide Abulphar Dyn. ed. Pocock, , p. 191.Google Scholar

page 58 note * Vide Avicen. Canon, lib. iv. tom. 1. cap. 6.

page 58 note † Mr. Moore.

page 59 note * See Woodville's History of the Small-pox, p. 3.

page 59 note † See Dr. Wilson on febrile diseases.

page 60 note * To the great dampness of Cork, owing to its situation and other causes, Dr. Walker ascribes the severity of the small-pox in that city. See his work on the Small-pox.

page 60 note † See his Diseases of Barbadoes, p. 17.

page 60 note ‡ See Work, pp. 4 and 5.

page 60 note § See Cleghorn's Diseases of Minorca.

page 61 note * See the Rev. J. Cordiner's Description of Ceylon, vol. i. p. 254.

page 61 note † See Dr. John Clark's Diseases of Long Voyages, vol. i. p. 128.

page 61 note ‡ See the Rev. W. Ward's View of the History, Religion, and Literature of the Hindoos, vol. iv. p. 339.

page 61 note § See his History of Inoculation, vol. i. p. 36.

page 62 note * See an account of inoculating in Arabia, in a letter from Dr. P. Russel, Phil. Trans., vol. lvi. p. 140.

page 62 note † See Niebuhr's account of Arabia, p. 123, French edition.

page 62 note ‡ Into which city it would appear to have been introduced from the Morea.

page 62 note § See Dr. Wilson's Work on Febrile Diseases, vol. ii. p. 286.

page 63 note * See his View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindus, vol. i. p. 174.

page 65 note * See Dr. Jenner's Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ, p. 6.

page 65 note † Loy's Account of some Experiments on the Origin of the Cow-Pox, p. 20.

page 65 note ‡ See Annals of Medicine, vol. ii., p. 263.

page 66 note * See Medical Repository, vol. v. p. 93.

page 66 note † Extending from Chichacottah to Phari. See Turner's Embassy to Thibet, pp. 20 and 178.

page 69 note * See Cordiner's Ceylon, vol. i. p. 255.

page 70 note * There are those who suppose that the preventive influence of the cow-pox fluid may perhaps only operate on the frame for a certain period or number of years, an evil which, if it does exist, might be obviated by repeating the operation of vaccination from time to time.

page 70 note † By not attending to this caution, mischief is sometimes done by the production of a spurious disease; a fact clearly proved by Dr. Friese, of Breslaw. See Mod. Trans., vol. xiv. pages 233, &c.

page 70 note ‡ An inestimable caution given us by Jenner.

page 70 note § Which is, to vaccinate one arm from the other; when it will be found, that if the first operation has been effectual in bringing on the real constitutional disease, the second attempt will fail in producing the regular vesicle.—See Bryce on the Cow-Pox, page 207.

page 70 note ‖ Dr. Willan describes three species of vesicles which have at times been mistaken for cowpox, but which do not wholly secure the constitution from small-pox.—See his work on Vaccine Inoculation, page 39. A degenerated cow-pox was also noticed by Sir Gilbert Blane; in it the vesicle is amorphous, the fluid often of a straw-colour or purulent, and the areola absent, indistinct, or confused.—See his examination before the House of Commons.

page 71 note * See Dr. Mason Good's Study of Medicine, vol. ii. page 596.

page 71 note † For an excellent account of a varioloid epidemic which lately prevailed in Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland, with observations on the identity of Chicken-pox and modified Smallpox, see a work on the subject by Dr. John Thomson.

page 71 note ‡ See Medical Transactions, vol. i. article xxii.

page 73 note * Up to the years 1822 and 1823.

page 73 note † It would appear by Morier's second journey to Persia, that, about the year 1810, the king of that country actually caused ferashes to be placed, in order to prevent the women from taking their children to the surgeons to be vaccinated; and this was done at a time when, from the anxiety of the natives themselves to adopt the preventive, there was every reason to hope that it would become general in Tehran. In 1816, however, we learn by a communication from the English ambassador at Ispahan, that the presumptive heir to the throne and fifteen of his suite had been vaccinated, and that the blessing was making rapid strides throughout the Persian dominions.—See Asiatic Journal for October 1816, and September 1818.Google Scholar