Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/294

 272 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. had spoken in warm terms " de la decouverte de Jenner," and had hailed him as one of the " plus grands bienfaiteurs de I'liumanite." But in the article on Vaccination, published in the above dictionary, in 1821, he declares in detail that the first idea was given by a Frenchman, videlicet, Mr. Rabant, a protestant minister at Montpelier. But a question more worthy of attention forces itself on our notice. Is the small-pox totally under the control of vaccination, and is it likely to be extirpated? Those who consider the careless- ness and improvidence of mankind, the manner in which trivial accidents often impede the most ear- nest intentions, and the alloy of evil so largely mixed up with every earthly good, cannot entertain any sanguine hope to that effect, but are not at all the less penetrated with the value of vaccination. Every habit and every object in nature has its excep- tions. Thousands of seeds are deposited yearly in the earth, which never shoot into life, but the farmer does not the less continue to sow. The cases of small- pox which occur after vaccination are not more numerous than the exceptions which alike occur to other human antidotes. If vaccination cannot be at present considered as a never-failing and invariable preservative, it must continue to be recommended as a very potent and a very general preventive of small-pox. It is an operation attended with no danger, and with very little in- convenience ; it protects a very large majority ; and in those instances in which small-pox occurs subsequently to it, it usually assumes a mild cha- racter. It should be noticed, that these subsequent instances are less frequent in the countries in which