Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

The first smallpox vaccinations in Verona 

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BARBIERI, Matteo. LA VACCINA ALLA PROVA ossia l’antiperistasi del vajuolo memoria... Verona: Presso l’erede Merlo, 1802.  SOLD

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FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 168; with one folding table after page 48; a few contemporary manuscript corrections in ink; some light foxing in places, and some very light dampstaining, but generally clean and fresh throughout; with illegible ownership inscription in contemporary hand faintly at foot of title-page; in contemporary half sheep, marbled boards, flat spine tooled in gilt with morocco letterering-pieces; marbled endpapers with old book-plate (seemingly private) removed from front paste-down.

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Sole edition, uncommon, of this extended sketch on the history and practice of smallpox vaccination, by the Verona physician Matteo Barbieri (1745-1821).

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Inspired by the publication in 1798 of Jenner’s Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, Barbieri began his own experiments with vaccination shortly afterwards, initially with mixed results. The present work describes his experiences as the first person to practise smallpox vaccination in Verona, presenting the various results and his observations, and suggesting solutions to some of the problems he encountered, especially in the light of the opposition which there was to the new practice. The work opens with two official reports by Barbieri, from June and July 1801, explaining the development of vaccination in England and Italy, and the effects of the process at its various stages. A folding plate then charts the progress of six subjects ranging from four months to eighteen years old before, in a second part, Barbieri addresses fifteen difficulties he had identified, drawing on both his own experiences and those of the authorities in Britain and elsewhere, and addressing questions such as whether it is better to use fresh or dried vaccines, how long a shelf life vaccines might have, and whether vaccine material that is not renewed might either become ineffective or actively harmful.

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A final section presents a register of the 160 people vaccinated on both banks of the Adige, mostly by Barbieri but also by Dr Bellini in Caldiero, and Carlo Brusco in Valeggio. 

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Outside Italy, OCLC records copies at Yale, Johns Hopkins, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Wellcome. 

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[ref: 2440 ]