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The little one was the first of the British royal house to receive the benefits of Jenner's discovery of vaccination. The Duke of Kent was so careful of his little girl that he took a cottage at Sidmouth to escape the London winter.

I am in possession of all the fame I ever hoped or ambitioned. I wear not the appearance of twenty years; I am now, as I generally am, sad and miserable. In 1811 Dr. Morgan, a good-looking widower of about eight-and-twenty, accepted the post of private physician to Lord Abercorn. He was a Cambridge man, an intimate friend of Dr. Jenner's, and possessed a small fortune of his own.

The introduction of a contagious disease from a brute creature into the human system naturally struck the public mind with a sensation of disgust and apprehension, and a part of the medical public may have shared these feelings. I find that Jenner's discovery of vaccination was made public in June, 1798. In July of the same year the celebrated surgeon, Mr.

Franklin came in, with her arms full of something all fine and misty like a lacy cobweb. "I've brought you my wedding veil, dearie," she said. "I wore it forty years ago. And God bless you, dearie. I can't stop a minute. The boy is killing the chickens and Bridget is getting ready to broil them. Mrs. Jenner's son across the road has just gone down to the bakery for a wedding cake."

But Jenner's chief merit was his fortunate conjecture, that the infection might be propagated from one human subject to another. This was the greatest medical discovery since that of the Circulation of the Blood.

Cattle roaming in pasture and prairie have never been affected by cowpox, nor have domesticated steers and oxen. If this disease were a disorder peculiar to cattle, both sexes would be equally affected. Jenner's cowpox was caused by the diseased hands of the syphilitic milkmaid, Sarah Nehnes."

What a grand triumph of medical art, also, following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to each! But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol.

The advice of the great anatomist was thoroughly characteristic: "Don't think, but TRY; be patient, be accurate." Jenner's courage was supported by the advice, which conveyed to him the true art of philosophical investigation. He went back to the country to practise his profession and make observations and experiments, which he continued to pursue for a period of twenty years.

"I'm dark, sir," said she: and went off briskly homewards, and Alfred stood rapt in dreamy joy, and so self-elated that, had he been furnished like a peacock, he would have instantly become a "thing all eyes," and choked up Jenner's shop, and swept his counter. He had made a step towards familiarity, had written her a letter; and then, if this prescription came, as he suspected, from Dr.

Needless to say, I refer to Jenner's discovery of the method of preventing smallpox by inoculation with the virus of cow-pox. It detracts nothing from the merit of this discovery to say that the preventive power of accidental inoculation had long been rumored among the peasantry of England. Such vague, unavailing half-knowledge is often the forerunner of fruitful discovery.