small-pox; he also vividly remembered the discipline to which he had been himself subjected preparatory to his inoculation for that disease: "There was," to use his own words, "bleeding till the blood was thin, purging till the body was wasted to a skeleton, and starving on vegetable diet to keep it so." He early mentioned his rumours of the vaccine protection to John Hunter, who does not seem to have afforded him much encouragement. He appears to have first considered the subject in 1775, and it often recurred to him between that time and 1796, when he made his first decisive experiment. Riding with his friend Gardner, in 1780, on the road between Gloucester and Bristol, he sketched to his friend, in the outlines of anticipation, the plan which he wished to pursue, and the success which might possibly hereafter dawn upon him. These are the delicious moments of genius, of industry—when, wandering for a time from the rugged or thorny walk of daily exertion, the prospective eye looks down from a tranquil and lofty eminence on the distant and varied scenery of hope, melting into the sky, and illumined with all the colours of imagination.
At the meetings of the Alveston Medical Club, of which he was a member, he often introduced his favourite theme, but failed in communicating his own enthusiasm to his hearers, who denounced the topic as a nuisance, from its frequent appearance, and even sportively threatened to expel the orator if he continued to harass them with this importunate discourse. Jenner everywhere proclaimed his belief in the efficacy of his antidote, but he found none to second his wishes; a similar reception has been
