Page images
PDF
EPUB

Vaccine Inoculation in Mexico.

THE important discovery of Dr. Jenner, which enables us

to subdue one of the most dreadful diseases to which mankind is liable, has, in common with other valuable discoveries encountered its full share of opposition and prejudice; and it is a singular fact, that in the very country in which the benefits of the vaccine inoculation were first exhibited, the smallpox in particular districts still rages, and even in the metropolis is sweeping away no inconsiderable portion of its inhabi tants. Is it not astonishing that any scientific man could be guilty of aiding the fatal havock of a devouring scourge, by persisting in inoculating for the small-pox, in spite of the strongest evidence of facts? and yet it is done daily and publicly; but in the name of common feeling and common sense, if any one can reconcile his mind to the exposure of his child to the peril of the small-pox, let him take the utmost care that the contagion be confined within the limit of his own circle: in other countries there has been less of this unaccountable prejudice; and we extract with pleasure, from Humboldt's Travels, the following account of the introduction of vacci nation into Mexico.

The small-pox, introduced since 1520, appears only to exercise its ravages every seventeen or eighteen years. the equinoctial regions, it has, like the black vomiting, and several other diseases its fixed periods, to which it is very regularly subjected. We might say, that in these countries the disposition for certain miasmata is only renewed in the natives at long intervals; for though the vessels from Europe frequently introduce the germ of the small-pox, it never becomes epidemical but after very marked intervals; a singu lar circumstance, which renders the disease so much the more dangerous for adults. The small-pox committed terrible ravages, in 1763, and especially in 1779, in which year it carried off in the capital of Mexico alone, more than nine thousand persons. Every evening, tumbrels passed through the streets to receive the corpses, as at Philadelphia during the yellow fever. A great part of the Mexican youth was cut down that year.

The epidemic of 1797 was less destructive, chiefly owing to the zeal with which inoculation was propagated in the environs of Mexico, and in the bishopric of Mechoachan. In the capital of this bishopric, the city of Valladolid, of 6800 individuals inoculated, only 170, or two and a half per cent. died; and we must also observe, that several of those who perished were inoculated at a time when they were probably already infected in the natural manner. Fifteen in the hundred died, of individuals of all ages, who without being inoculated, were victims of the natural small-pox. Several individuals, particularly among the clergy, displayed at that period a very praise-worthy patriotism, in arresting the progress of the disease by inoculation. I shall merely mention the names of two enlightened men, M. de Reano, intendant of Guanaxuato, and Don Manuel Abad, penitentiary canon of the cathedral of Valladolid, whose generous and disinterested views were constantly directed towards the public good. There were then inoculated in the kingdom between fifty and 60,000 individuals. But in the month of January, 1804, the vaccine inoculation was even introduced at Mexico through the activity of a respectable citizen, Don Thomas Murphy, who brought several times the virus from North America. This introduction found few obstacles; the cow-pox appeared under the aspect of a very trivial malady, and the small-pox inoculation had already accustomed the Indians to the idea that it might be useful to submit to a temporary evil for the sake of evading a greater evil. If the vaccine inoculation, or even the ordinary inoculation, had been known in the new world in the sixteenth century, several millions of Indians would not have perished victims to the small-pox, and particularly to the absurd treatment by which the disease was rendered so fatal. To this disease the fearful diminution of the numbers of Indians in California is to be ascribed. The ships of war commissioned to carry the vaccine matter into America and Asia, arrived at Vera Cruz shortly after my arrival. Don Antonio Valmis, physician-general of this expedition, visited Porto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, and the Philippine Islands; and his stay at Mexico, where, nevertheless, the cow-pox was known before his arrival, contributed singu Jarly to facilitate the propagation of this salutary preservative. In the principal cities of the kingdom, vaccine committees were formed (juntas centrales), composed of the most enlightened individuals, who, by vaccinating monthly, preserve the miasma from being lost. It is so much the less liable

to be lost, as it exists in the country. M. Valmis discovered it in the environs of Valladolid, and in the village of Atlisco, near la Puebla, in the udders of the Mexican cows. The commission having fulfilled the beneficent views of the king of Spain, we may indulge a hope, that through the influence of the clergy, and especially of the religious missionaries, vaccination will be gradually introduced into the very interior of the country. The voyage of M. Valmis will thus remain for ever memorable in the annals of history. The Indians saw for the first time those vessels, which were formerly freighted only with instruments of carnage and destruction, bearing about the germ of relief and consolation to distressed and suffering humanity. The arrival of the armed frigates, in which M. Valmis made the circuit of the Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, gave rise on several coasts to one of the most simple, and therefore most affecting ceremonies. The bishops, military governors, and persons of greatest distinction, repaired to the shore, where they took in their arms the children, who were to carry the cow-pox to the indigenous Americans, and the Malays of the Philippine Islands; and, followed with public acclamations, they laid at the foot of the altar those precious preservative deposits, returning thanks to the Supreme Being for having been the witnesses of so happy an event. We must have some knowledge of the ravages occasioned by the small-pox in the Torrid Zone, and especially among a race of men whose physical constitution seems adverse to cutaneous eruptions, in order to feel all the importance of M. Jenner's discovery. It is a much greater blessing for the equinoctial part of the new continent, than for the temperate climate of the old.

It may be useful to relate here a fact of some importance, for those who take an interest in the progress of vaccination. It was unknown at Lima till the month of November, 1802. At that period the small-pox prevailed on the coast of the South Sea. A merchant vessel, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, put into Lima on the passage from Spain to Manilla: an individual had had the good sense to send by this vessel vaccine matter to the Philippine Islands: they_availed themselves of this opportunity at Lima; and M. Unanue, professor of anatomy, and author of an excellent physiological treatise on the climate of Peru, vaccinated several individuals by means of the matter brought by the merchant veszel: no pustule appeared; and the virus appeared either altered or too weak; however, M. Unanue having observed

that all the vaccinated individuals had a very mild small-pox, employed this variolous matter, to render, if possible, by the ordinary inoculation, the disease less fatal: he thus perceived, in an indirect way, the effects of a vaccination supposed to have failed. It was accidently discovered in the course of the same epidemic in 1802, that the beneficent effect of vaccination had been long known to the country people among the Peruvian Andes: a negro slave had been inoculated for the small-pox in the house of the Marquis de Valleumbroso, who shewed no symptom of the disease: they were going to repeat the inoculation, when the young man told them, that he was certain of never having the small-pox, because, in milking cows in the Cordillera of the Andes, he had had a sort of cutaneous eruption, caused, as the Indian herdsmen said, by the contact of certain tubercles, sometimes found on the udders of cows: those who have had this eruption, said the negro, never take the small-pox. The Africans, and especially the Indians, display great sagacity in observing the character, habits, and diseases of the animals with which they live we need not therefore be astonished, that, on the introduction of horned cattle into America, the lower people remarked, that the pustules on the udders of cows, communicated to the herdsmen a species of benignant small-pox, and that those once infected, are secure from the general conta gion during the epochs when the disease is epidemical.

On the House of Correction at Exeter.

THE house of correction for the county of Devon, erected in the year 1809 at Exeter, appears well calculated to remedy many of the evils, so long and so justly complained of in our gaols in its construction particular reference has been had to facility of inspection, to modes of keeping the different classes of prisoners separate, and to secure a full and free circulation of air; but, though the building itself will remain a lasting honour to the county of Devon, our admiration is still more strongly excited, by contemplating the judicious system of management adopted by the committee of magistrates, of which Samuel Frederick Milford, Esq. is chair

man their great object appears to be to secure the criminals from plunging deeper into depravity, and to reform them, if possible; the number of prisoners on June 21, 1810, was sixty-eight, every one of whom was employed in some kind of labour. At the entrance of the prison a charity-box is affixed, for the purpose of receiving contributions, to reward prisoners whose conduct has been exemplary during their confinement, and those who, after their discharge, bring certificates of their having continued a year in a reputable service. According to the wise and liberal rules of this establishment, (which are printed) the entire earnings of the prisoners, are divided amongst them and the keeper, which operates as a powerful stimulus to both parties to exert themselves in devising and carrying on proper modes of employment with zeal and activity. It appears by the regulations of those few other houses of correction in this kingdom, into which a system of industry has been introduced, that the counties appropriate to themselves a share of the profits arising from the labour of the prisoners, the amount of which can hardly be an object to those extensive and opulent districts; whilst such an appropriation diminishes the motive to exertion, both in the keeper, and those whom he sets to work this may be one reason why in some counties, the laudable exertions of the magistrates are not now productive of all those beneficial consequences which at first were confidently expected, and that the manufactures are carried on with little energy or spirit; certainly the object ought not to be to acquire gain, but to produce habits of labour and industry, an aversion to which, is probably the source of more than half the crimes committed by the lower classes of society; besides, in the in. stances where the plan of appropriating to the county a part of the earnings is pursued, all the raw materials and objects of labour are purchased on the account of the counties, and manu factured and sold at their risk, which occasions an intricate system of book-keeping, opens a door to much imposition, and requires more incessant vigilance of the magistrate than can for a permanency be expected. Let the prisoners taste in an adequate degree the sweets of labour; and habits of industry will soon be generated, than which, a greater benefit to society can scarcely be imagined. In many prisons those habits, if brought into them, are there lost, which having once taken place, they are scarcely ever regained after the restora tion of the prisoner to the public walks of life; some of our houses of correction, in which there is little or no labour, and

VOL. I.

2 K

« PreviousContinue »