The results of his experiments were published in a famous small quarto
volume in 1798.(*) From this date, smallpox has been under control.
Thanks to Jenner, not a single person in this audience is pockmarked!
A hundred and twenty-five years ago, the faces of more than half of you
would have been scarred. We now know the principle upon which protection
is secured: an active acquired immunity follows upon an attack of a
disease of a similar nature. Smallpox and cowpox are closely allied and
the substances formed in the blood by the one are resistant to the
virus of the other. I do not see how any reasonable person can oppose
vaccination or decry its benefits. I show you the mortality figures(9)
of the Prussian Army and of the German Empire. A comparison with
the statistics of the armies of other European countries in which
revaccination is not so thoroughly carried out is most convincing of its
efficacy.

(8) Edward Jenner: The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation,
London, 1801.

(*) Reprinted by Camac: Epoch-making Contributions to Medicine,
etc., 1909.--Ed.

(9) Jockmann: Pocken und Vaccinationlehre, 1913.

The early years of the century saw the rise of modern clinical medicine
in Paris. In the art of observation men had come to a standstill.
I doubt very much whether Corvisart in 1800 was any more skilful in
recognizing a case of pneumonia than was Aretaeus in the second century
A. D. But disease had come to be more systematically studied; special
clinics were organized, and teaching became much more thorough. Anyone
who wishes to have a picture of the medical schools in Europe in the
first few years of the century, should read the account of the travels
of Joseph Frank of Vienna.(10) The description of Corvisart is of a
pioneer in clinical teaching whose method remains in vogue today
in France--the ward visit, followed by a systematic lecture in the
amphitheatre. There were still lectures on Hippocrates three times a
week, and bleeding was the principal plan of treatment: one morning
Frank saw thirty patients, out of one hundred and twelve, bled!
Corvisart was the strong clinician of his generation, and his accurate
studies on the heart were among the first that had concentrated
attention upon a special organ. To him, too, is due the reintroduction
of the art of percussion in internal disease discovered by Auenbrugger
in 1761.

(10) Joseph Frank: Reise nach Paris (etc.), Wien, 1804