Forecasts
Sic Vos Non Vobis
The iconoclasts are turning their attention to the claims of Harvey and Jenner. They declare that the claim of Andrea Cesalpino, of Avezzo, one of the famous scientists of Italy in the sixteenth century, to the prior discovery of the circulation of the blood, has been established. And as to Jenner, they bring forward this inscription in the graveyard of Worth Maltravers, Dorsetshire, to show that he was anticipated by several years:
“Sacred to the memory of Benjamin Jesty, of Downshay, died April 16, 1816, aged 79. He was born at Yetminster, in this county, and was an upright, honest man, particularly noted for having been the first person known that introduced the cow-pox by inoculation, and who, for his great strength of mind, made the experiment from the cow on his wife and two sons in the year 1774.”
The “strength of mind” referred to would be laughable were it not for the fact that Jesty had already caught the cow-pox from his cows, and so did not need to be inoculated for it.