No. X.

The following Report of the Medical Committee of the Jennerian Society, on the subject of Vaccination, has been subscribed by 21 Physicians and 29 Surgeons of the first eminence in the Metropolis; and has been ordered to be printed and circulated among the members of the Society. It is inserted here, with a view to its more ex tensive circulation.

THE Medical Council of the Royal Jennerian Society, having been informed that various cases had occurred, which excited prejudices against Vaccine Inoculation, and tended to check the progress of that important discovery in this kingdom, appointed a Committee of twenty five of their members to inquire, not only into the nature and truth of such cases, but also into the evidence respecting instances of Small pox, alleged to have occurred twice in the same person.

In consequence of this reference, the Committee made diligent inquiry into the history of a number of cases, in which it was supposed

that Vaccination had failed to prevent the Small-pox, and also of such cases of Small-pox, as were stated to have happened subsequently to the natural or inoculated Small-pox.

In the course of their examination the Committee learned, that opinions and assertions had been advanced and circulated, which charged the Cow-pox with rendering patients liable to particular diseases, frightful in their appearance, and hitherto unknown; and judging such opinions to be connected with the question as to the efficacy of the practice, they thought it incumbent upon them to examine also into the validity of these injurious statements respecting Vaccination.

After a very minute investigation of these subjects, the result of their inquiries has been submitted to the Medical Council; and from the Report of the Committee it appears:

I. That most of the cases, which have been urged in proof of the inefficiency of Vaccination, and which have been the subjects of public attention and conversation, are either wholly unfounded, or grossly misrepresented.

II. That other cases, brought forward as instances of the failure of Vaccination to prevent the Small-pox, are now allowed, by the very

persons who first related them, to have been erroneously stated.

III. That the statements of the greater part of those cases have been already carefully investigated, ably discussed, and fully refuted, by different writers on the subject.

IV. That notwithstanding the most incontestable proofs of such misrepresentations, a few medical men have persisted in repeatedly bringing the same unfounded and refuted reports, and misrepresentations before the public, thus perversely and disingenuously labouring to excite prejudices against Vaccination.

V. That in some printed accounts adverse to Vaccination, in which the writers had no authenticated facts to support the opinions they advanced, nor any reasonable arguments to maintain them, the subject has been treated with indecent and disgusting levity; as if the good or evil of society were fit objects for sarcasm and ridicule.

VI. That when the practice of Vaccination was first introduced and recommended by Dr. Jenner, many persons, who had never seen the effects of the vaccine fluid on the human system, who were almost wholly unacquainted

with the history of Vaccination, the charac. teristic marks of the genuine vesicle, and the cautions necessary to be observed in the management of it, and were therefore incompetent to decide whether patients were properly vaccinated or not, nevertheless ventured to inoculate for the Cow-pox.

VII. That many persons have been declared duly vaccinated, when the operation was performed in a very negligent and unskilful man. ner, and when the inoculator did not afterwards see the patients, and therefore could not ascertain whether infection had taken place or not; and that to this cause are certainly to be attributed many of the cases adduced in proof

of the inefficacy of Cow-pox.

VIII. That some cases have been brought before the Committee, on which they could form no decisive opinion, from the want of necessary information as to the regularity of the preceding Vaccination, or the reality of the subsequent appearance of the Small-pox.

IX. That it is admitted by the Committee, that a few cases have been brought before them, of persons having the Small-pox, who had apparently passed through the Cow-pox in a regular way.

X. That cases, supported by evidence equally strong, have been also brought before them, of persons who, after having once regularly passed through the Small-pox, either by inoculation or natural infection, have had that disease a • second time.

XI. That in many cases, in which the Smallpox has occurred a second time, after inoculation or the natural disease, such recurrence has been particularly severe, and often fatal; whereas, when it has appeared after Vaccination, the disease has generally been so mild, as to lose some of its characteristick marks, and in many instances, to render its existence doubtful,

XII. That it is a fact well ascertained, that, in some particular states of certain constitutions, whether vaccine or variolous matter be employed, a local disease only will be excited by inoculation, the constitution remaining unaffected; yet that matter taken from such local vaccine or variolous pustule is capable of producing a general and perfect disease.

XIII. That if a person, bearing the strongest and most indubitable marks of having had the Small-pox, be repeatedly inoculated for that disease, a pustule may be produced, the matter

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