Chap. III.]
SMALL-POX.
65
CHAPTER III.
Aug. 20.landed this morning, and their arrangement and adjustment kept us all busily employed. Early in the morning the surgeon of the Yorktown came alongside with a message from Captain Aulick, acquainting me that the small-pox had made its appearance amongst his crew, and requesting to be furnished with a small quantity of vaccine matter, as that which they had brought from America with them was found to have lost its virtue. Unfortunately we had none to give them, nor could any be obtained from the medical officer at Kororarika; so that had this dreadful malady been taken by the natives, it is awful to think how terrible must have been the consequences, and the thousands that would have fallen victims to its virulence. If, as has been asserted, and I believe, proved, the vaccine matter which acts so powerfully as a preventive be merely the virus of the small-pox modified by the constitution of a cow which had been attacked by that disease, might it not be desirable, on its breaking out in a country where vaccine matter is not to be had, immediately to inoculate a cow with the smallpox, and thus obtain the best of all remedies? This question I must leave to be answered by those conversant with these matters; and if the suggestion
