“Three children were inoculated with the vaccine matter you obligingly sent me.  On calling to look at their arms three days after I was told that John Hodges, one of the three, had been inoculated with the smallpox when a year old, and that he had a full burthen, of which his face produced plentiful marks, a circumstance I was not before made acquainted with.  On the sixth day the arm of the boy appeared as if inoculated with variolous matter, but the pustule was rather more elevated.  On the ninth day he complained of violent pain in his head and back, accompanied with vomiting and much fever.  The next day he was very well and went to work as usual.  The punctured part began to spread, and there was the areola around the inoculated part to a considerable extent.

“As this is contrary to an assertion made in the Medical and
Physical Journal, No. 8, I thought it right to give you this
information, and remain,
     “Dear sir, etc.,
          “J.  Fewster.”

It appears, then, that the animal economy with regard to the action of this virus is under the same laws as it is with respect to the variolous virus, after previously feeling its influence, as far as comparisons can be made between the two diseases.

Some striking instances of the power of the cow-pox in suspending the progress of the smallpox after the patients had been several days casually exposed to the infection have been laid before me by Mr. Lyford, Surgeon, of Winchester, and my nephew, the Rev. G. C Jenner.  Mr. Lyford, after giving an account of his extensive and successful practice in the vaccine inoculation in Hampshire, writes as follows: 

“The following case occurred to me a short time since, and may probably be worth your notice.  I was sent for to a patient with the smallpox, and on inquiry found that five days previous to my seeing him the eruption began to appear.  During the whole of this time two children who had not had the smallpox, were constantly in the room with their father, and frequently on the bed with him.  The mother consulted me on the propriety of inoculating them, but objected to my taking the matter from their father, as he was subject to erysipelas.  I advised her by all means to have them inoculated at that time, as I could not procure any variolous matter elsewhere.  However, they were inoculated with vaccine matter, but I cannot say I flattered myself with its proving successful, as they had previously been so long and still continued to be exposed to the variolous infection.  Notwithstanding this I was agreeably surprised to find the vaccine disease advance and go through its regular course; and, if I may be allowed the expression, to the total extinction of the smallpox.”

Mr. Jenner’s cases were not less satisfactory.  He writes as follows: