Now the same pocks are produced whether the matter has been taken direct from the cow or from a person previously vaccinated.
The matter intended for vaccination should be taken from the cow or from the human being on the eighth day, while it is still clear and transparent.
Mode of Vaccination. — One of the most valuable parts of Jenner's work was the proof that the matter of the cow-pox could be passed through human beings for many generations without its value being lessened. From each fully grown pock sufficient matter can be tained to vaccinate about a dozen persons. When the pock is opened by the fine point of a clean lancet, the clear fluid runs out, and this fluid may be placed on the skin of an nated person from the lancet point, and caused to enter the blood by the point being passed into the skin sufficiently deeply to reach the true skin. A simple method consists in making a series of scratches across one another (as in Fig. 203), with the clean lancet point, on the part of the skin where the matter is placed. The scratches should be just deep enough to show blood. If they are too deep, the flow of blood may wash the matter away. The upper part of the arm is usually chosen. The matter may be kept for any length of time in properly sealed tubes. Extremely fine hair-like tubes are used. When.the end of the tube is placed in a drop of the fluid, the matter passes up by attraction, and when the tube is thus three parts filled, the ends are sealed in a flame. Or the matter may be placed on small slips of glass, or on clean quill points, and allowed to dry.
When the matter is required for use, the ends of the tube are broken off and it is blown out on to the skin, or the plates or quills are moistened with a small drop of pure water and rubbed on the skin where the scratches are made. Thus from one good pock sufficient matter may be preserved to vaccinate half a dozen or a dozen persons.
Objections to might have been supposed that when Joiner had conclu sively shown the value of his practice, and when cases by the thousand and tens of thousand confirmed his views, and proved that by means of vaccination a hateful disease, which killed thousands annually and mutilated for life many thousands more, could be rendered practically harmless, it might have been supposed that the acceptance of the practice would have been universal. But it was not so. Objectors rose
on every side, and the more successful the method was shown to be the more vigorous be came the opposition. One set of objections was sentimental. It was maintained that with the cow-pox some of the disposition of the ox would be imparted. It was declared that the moral character of children became perverted, that they exhibited the effects of a "bestial humour," that as vaccination was carried on the human race would degenerate, that innumerable evils would arise, that innumerable new and unheard of diseases would appear, that brutal tendencies would appear in vaccinated children, and that even brutal features would show themselves, in the appearance of horns, hair, perhaps tails, in the expression of the voice, which would become bellowing, in the character, which would become bullying. Pamphlets and doggerel rhymes of the wildest description were published to throw discredit on the practice. The following verses from one of these sufficiently show the nature of this opposition : O Jenner! thy book nightly phantasies rousing, Full oft makes me quake for my heart's dearest treasure; For fancy, in dreams, oft presents them all browsing On commons, just like little Nebuchadnezzar.
There, nibbling at thistle, stand John, Jern, and Mary, On their foreheads, 0 horrible ! crumpled horns bud; There Tom with his tail, and William all hairy, Reclined in a corner are chewing the cud.
Another kind of objection was of the pious sort. Small-pox was a "merciful provision on the part of Providence to lessen the burthen of a poor man's family ;" it was impious to attempt to set aside a divine dispensation ; &c. &c.
There were other and more serious objections.