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 WATERHOUSE

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WATERHOUSE

read a paper on the new inoculation be- fore a meeting of the American Acad- emy of Arts and Sciences, held in Cam- bridge. The academy was presided over by his old friend, John Adams, then president, and was composed of many eminent literary men. The communica- tion was received with great acclaim by the Academy and especially by the president. Very soon Waterhouse re- ceived the third publication on vac- cination, namely, William Woodville's "Reports of a Series of Inoculatioias for the Variolse Vaccinae, or Cow-pox, etc." published in 1799. He spared no pains to receive the fullest and most reliable information on the subject. In June, 1800, he succeeded, after many futile attempts, in procuring some vaccine virus on threads, from Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, England, all of the previous shipments having been spoiled during the long journey over the ocean. With this virus, on July 8, 1800, he vaccinated success- fully his httle five year old son, Daniel Oliver Waterhouse, the first person to be so treated in America. The result being satisfactory he vaccinated two others of his children, and in addition a nurse maid and a servant boy. The phenomena were carefully described by him. He refused to vaccinate others until he had ascertained whether vaccination was really protective. To determine this he made application to Dr. William Aspinwall, physician to a private small- pox hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts, to submit his children to the disease. This Dr. Aspinwall did gladly and the children were not only exposed to small- pox, but inoculated with the variolous matter. The results were entirely satis- factory and put Waterhouse in a position to advance the crusade. As he truly remarked — "One fact in such cases is worth a thousand arguments."

W^aterhouse was a proHfic writer and something of a controversialist. In his early work with vaccine he made the same mistake as Woodville; he not only vaccinated with cow-pox, but within a few days, inoculated with small-pox as

well, consequently many of the patients had variola as well as vaccinia. Later he recognized the mistake, also the reason that much of the virus was without virtue was because Jenner's golden rule was broken, namely, " Never to take the virus from a vaccine pustule, for the purpose of inoculation, after the efflor- escence is formed around it." In 1801 Waterhouse sent Pres. Thomas Jefferson some infected threads and such books and drawings as would enable a physician to perform vaccination properly. This was in answer to a letter from Jefferson showing interest as a result of reading Waterhouse's publications. This virus proved to be inert, but later some fresh virus was sent him with which Dr. Wardlaw, of Monticello, vaccinated the president's family, August 6, 1801. Thus was vaccination popularized in Monticello, and before long in Washing- ton through virus sent there to Dr. Gant. In like fashion virus was sent to New York and Philadelphia. Finally, at Waterhouse's request, the Boston Board of Health, after many refusals to act, appointed a committee of seven of the most reputable physicians in the town to investigate the subject. They vaccinated nineteen children in August, 1802. In November of the same year these same children were inoculated two different times with variolous matter and exposed for twenty days to the contagion of small-pox at the small-pox hospital on Noddle's Island (East Boston). The experiment proved conclusively "that cow-pox is a complete security against the small-pox," as not one of the children took the disease. Thus was the practice of vaccination fixed forever in Boston and its vicinity. Waterhouse kept in touch with practitioners throughout the county and furnished them with fresh virus from England while supporting vaccination with his pen, his friendships formed in England putting him in pos- session of the latest and best information on the subject.

He was peculiarly well fitted to fight for a worthy cause and he fought long and