The next day I found this simple mode of treatment had succeeded perfectly.  The inflammation was nearly gone off, and with it the symptoms which it had produced.

Some of these patients have since been inoculated with variolous matter, without any effect beyond a little inflammation on the part where it was inserted.

Why the arms of those inoculated with the vaccine matter in the country should be more disposed to inflame than those inoculated in London it may be difficult to determine.  From comparing my own cases with some transmitted to me by Dr. Pearson and Dr. Woodville, this appears to be the fact; and what strikes me as still more extraordinary with respect to those inoculated in London is the appearance of maturating eruptions, In the two instances only which I have mentioned (the one from the inoculated, the other from the casual, cow-pox) a few red spots appeared, which quickly went off without maturating.  The case of the Rev. Mr. Moore’s servant may, indeed, seem like a deviation from the common appearances in the country, but the nature of these eruptions was not ascertained beyond their not possessing the property of communicating the disease by their effluvia.  Perhaps the difference we perceive may be owing to some variety in the mode of action of the virus upon the skin of those who breathe the air of London and those who live in the country.  That the erysipelas assumes a different form in London from what we see it put on in this country is a fact very generally acknowledged.  In calling the inflammation that is excited by the cow-pox virus erysipelatous, perhaps I may not be critically exact, but it certainly approaches near to it.  Now, as the diseased action going forward in the part infected with the virus may undergo different modifications according to the peculiarities of the constitution on which it is to produce its effect, may it not account for the variation which has been observed?

To this it may probably be objected that some of the patients inoculated, and who had pustules in consequence, were newly come from the country; but I conceive that the changes wrought in the human body through the medium of the lungs may be extremely rapid.  Yet, after all, further experiments made in London with vaccine virus generated in the country must finally throw a light on what now certainly appears obscure and mysterious.

The principal variation perceptible to me in the action of the vaccine virus generated in London from that produced in the country was its proving more certainly infectious and giving a less disposition in the arm to inflame.  There appears also a greater elevation of the pustule above the surrounding skin.  In my former cases the pustule produced by the insertion of the virus was more like one of those which are so thickly spread over the body in a bad kind of confluent smallpox.  This was more like a pustule of the distinct smallpox, except that I saw no instance of pus being formed in it, the matter remaining limpid till the period of scabbing.