PEDIATRICS Vol. 37 No. 6 June 1966, pp. 921-923
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RESPONSE TO JENNER'S EPOCHAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF 1798

John A Washington M.D.1

1 Department of Pediatrics, George Washington University School of Medicine, and Children's Hospital of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.

To Pediatricians long in practice the administration of Salk and Sabin poliomyelitis vaccines and the use of measles vaccine have been exciting and gratifying experiences. That the advent of the new vaccination against smallpox was similarly stirring to alert physicians of 1800 is evidenced by the following excerpts from Samuel Scofield's Treatise on Vaccina or Cowpock published in 1810.1 The prospect of controlling this scourge stimulated a widespread demand somewhat comparable to that for poliomyelitis vaccine. Facilities for communication, supply, and transport were so vastly inferior that the extensiveness of its use in a few years time is surprising.

Eleven years have now elapsed since the world was put into possession of this inestimable blessing by the accurate and indefatigable Jenner. . . . The Cowpock Inoculation has been practiced in every quarter of the Globe. . . .

In the West-Indies I have witnessed the most salutory effects from it in preserving the Blacks from smallpox, which so frequently commits the most terrible ravages in tropical climates.

It has received the patronage of every government under whose cognizance it has come and in many countries, as America, Great Britain, France, Italy. . . . institutions have been established for the gratuitous inoculation of the poor.

In January, 1802, an institution was established in this city (New York) for the purpose of vaccinating the poor gratis. . . . To this establishment the author of the present treatise was appointed Resident Surgeon. . . .

From late accounts we are informed that the Cowpock has been received in the East-Indies with the greatest enthusiasm and many millions have already been vaccinated.

Submitted on September 23, 1966
Accepted on November 28, 1965