HISTORY. Many years before the time of Jenner it was observed in widely separated locali ties that accidental infection with cow-pox con ferred immunity against smallpox. Immermann quotes Von Humboldt as referring in his travels in the tropics (1803) to the fact that native shepherds in the Mexican Cordilleras believed in the protection afforded by vaceinia against small pox, and quotes Brun as making a similar state ment in reference to the clan of Elihots in Balu chistan. Peasants in different parts of Europe, especially in the southern part of England, in Holstein, Mecklenburg, Hanover, and Saxony were firmly convinced of the fact. In 1763 Dr. lleim. of Saxe-Meiningen. learned through his father, a clergyman, that milkmaids of that country neighborhood asserted their belief in the protective influence of accidental vaeeinia against variola. The English physicians Sutton and Fewster, having heard of similar beliefs, in oculated with human smallpox. in 177S, several persons who had been infected with vaccinia, without result. Medical men paid but little heed to their reports, and apparently further experi ments were not made by them. A Gloucestershire farmer, Benjamin Jesty, was probably the first European to vaccinate as a preventive. He in oculated successfully his wife and two sons with bovine virus in 1774, having himself secured immunity from variola through accidental vac einia. It is further reported that Platt, a school to:teller near Kiel. vaccinated two children with bovine virus to protect them from an epidemic of smallpox in 1791. But great and lasting credit is no less due to Edward Jenner (q.v.), who in 1768 began a thorough scientific investi gation of the matter, and placed the performance of vaccination in its proper place among pro phylactic procedures. His experiments were very numerous and accurate. The first mention of individuals occurs in the history of the inocula tion on May 14, 1796. of the eight-year-old James
Phipps with vaccine virus from a vesicle on the person of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelwes, who had accidentally acquired cowpox. This was prob ably the first vaccination of a patient with humanized virus of the first generation. Phipps developed a typical ease of cowpox, and sub sequent attempted inoculation with smallpox virus proved negative. Jenner followed this ex periment with an inoculation with bovine virus, and then inoculating from individual to indi vidual for five generations, securing perfect im munity from smallpox in all eases. When both facts were established he put forth his remark able publication, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the l'arialw Vaccinicr, Known by the of the Cowpox (17981. This work was translated into Latin and all the European lan guages, and excited much attention, as well as opposition. Vaccinations were frequent anti nu merous. and many representative and noted phy sicians declared themselves as advocates of the theory and practice, in England, France, Austria, Italy. Germany, Switzerland. Holland,.Norway, Sweden, Russia, Spain, and Portugal. Dr. Pear son. of London, was at the head of a vaccination institute founded in 1799 by the advocates of Jenner's theory. Jenner founded, in 1803, the Royal Institute fur the Extermination of Small pox, which he directed for many years. Both in stitutions vaeeinated people free of charge and supplied virus for other countries. To Luigi Sacco, a physician of Milan, is due credit sec ond only to :Fenner's, for a life-long service in behalf of preventive vaccination, equine and ovine inoculation, and retro-inoculation. To Sacco the world owes the final adoption of ani mal (bovine) virus in place of humanized virus.