TRIUMPH OF THE NEW INOCULATION.
The House of Hanover has been reproached for indifference to
literature, science and art, but an exception might be asserted on
the score of variolous and vaccine inoculation. It was Caroline,
Princess of Wales, who in 1721 promoted Maitland’s experiments;
and Jenner found none so ready to hear and believe as George
III. and his family. His first convert was the Duke of Clarence,
subsequently William IV. The Duke’s surgeon happened to be Francis
Knight, who had lived in Wilts and Gloucestershire, and was
familiar with the country faith in cowpox, and received Jenner’s
communication with a ready mind. In 1799 Knight was allowed to
operate upon the Duke’s children by Mrs. Jordan, and the fact was
noised abroad and passed to Jenner’s credit. Nor was the Duke’s
service limited to this example. He made Jenner’s acquaintance,
listened to his stories, and became his active partizan. Then the
Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, was convinced, and
enforced the new practice to the full extent of his power. He,
moreover, acted as patron of the Vaccine Pock Institution until he
was persuaded that Pearson, its founder, was injurious to Jenner.
On 7th March, 1800, Jenner was presented to George III. at St.
James’s Palace, and delivered _The Inquiry_ bound in crimson to his
majesty, who was pleased to accept the dedication of the second
edition. On the 27th he had an interview with Queen Charlotte,
who conversed about the new specific with all the curiosity of
a grand-motherly quack. The Prince of Wales followed suit; and
Jenner found himself invested with the full effulgence of the royal
favour. It was a magical success; for, consider, not two years had
elapsed since the publication of _The Inquiry_.
Jenner naturally became very popular. He wrote to Mr. Shrapnel--“I
have not yet made half my calls in town, although I fag from
eleven till four;” and, “Pray tell Tierney how rapidly the Cowpox
is marching over the metropolis, and indeed through the whole
island. The death of three children under inoculation with smallpox
will probably give that practice the Brutus-stab.”
With little ability to make and maintain ground, Jenner, like many
feeble folk, had the faculty of converting those he called his
friends to his private advantage. He did not subdue them by will,
but by weakness. Indeed, whoever chooses to observe will often have
to mark with amaze how stronger natures suffer their means and
energies to be appropriated by inferior organisms, and used with
the thanklessness of rightful possession.
John Ring was a remarkable instance of this sort of possession.
He was a surgeon in New Street, Hanover Square, London. In 1799
he entered into correspondence with Jenner, and his interest in
cowpox and its advertiser developed into an enthusiasm without
qualification by weariness or fear. Whatever Jenner asserted he
swore to; whatever charge was brought against the New Inoculation
he denied. He was ready for all comers with such voluble and
hearty vigour that his outrages on propriety were laughed at and
excused as “John Ring’s way.” Among his earlier services was the
preparation of the Testimonial in favour of the New Inoculation
which he carried from house to house and obtained the signature
of nearly every London physician and surgeon of distinction. The
Testimonial was published in the _Medical Review_ and _Medical
Journal_ for July, 1800, and was reprinted in the newspapers. It
ran as follows--
Many unfounded reports have been circulated, which have a
tendency to prejudice the public against the Inoculation of the
Cowpox: we, the undersigned physicians and surgeons, think it
our duty to declare our opinion, that those persons who have
had the Cowpox are perfectly secure from the future infection
of the Smallpox, provided the infection has not been previously
communicated.[119]
We also declare that the inoculated Cowpox is a much milder and
safer disease than the inoculated Smallpox.
The first signatures comprised thirty-two physicians and forty
surgeons, and the example being set, others hastened from town and
country to record their adhesion. “I feel proud,” wrote Mr. Witham
in sending his name, “that my little bark may, with others more
illustrious,
Attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale.”
The Testimonial had great effect on the public mind: to the
majority it was irresistible. As Ring said, “It confounded the
enemies of the new practice”--adding in his characteristic
vernacular, “and it secured the triumph of reason over the scruples
of prejudice and ignorance, and the base manœuvres of sordid and
self-interested men.”[120] Thus early was it discovered that an
opponent of Vaccination was an ignoramus or a rascal. Ring’s easy
arrogance is concisely illustrated in this deliverance--
It is no want of candour to affirm that those who are hostile to
Vaccine Inoculation, are total strangers to it; those who are
doubtful, are almost total strangers to it; and I defy the whole
world to produce one single instance of a person that has had any
experience of the disease, who is not a decided friend to the
practice.[121]
Jenner recognised his thorough-going supporter, and used his
loyalty to strike at Pearson and others who failed to abide in like
subservience. He wrote to a foreign physician--
The discovery which I had the happiness to announce to the world
is much indebted to Mr. Ring’s ardent zeal and indefatigable
exertions for the rapid progress it has made; while some of
those _who vainly conceived themselves instrumental in promoting
its adoption_ have in reality from _their ignorance and
indiscretion_, rather retarded than accelerated its progress.[122]
Wonder is frequently expressed over the rapid conversion of England
and the world to Vaccination, but, as I have before remarked,
wonder is much reduced when we set the circumstances clearly
before us. Inoculation with smallpox to avert smallpox was the
practice of the time, and it was not a universal practice simply
because it was troublesome and dangerous: everybody believed in
the saving rite; and where evaded it was as onerous and perilous
duties are always and everywhere evaded by the indolent and
cowardly. Inoculation with cowpox was introduced to the public
as a substitute for inoculation with smallpox, equally efficient
or more efficient, and neither troublesome nor dangerous. Thus
easy and seductive was the transition from the one practice to
the other. Jenner had no serious battle to fight: the contest
was decided in the years during which inoculation with smallpox
struggled for prevalence. The warfare that subsequently cost
him so much irritation was conducted by the conservatives of
Inoculation, as experience revealed the inefficiency and mischiefs
of Vaccination. Resistance such as is now offered to Vaccination on
physiological grounds there was none, so far as I can discover. It
had apparently occurred to no one that smallpox was a consequence
of the transgression of the laws of health, and was preventible by
submission to those laws. It was imagined that the disease came
by the will of God, or the devil, or by force of fate, and that
to dodge it by medical craft was the utmost that was practicable.
Unless we bear in mind these conditions of the public intelligence,
we shall misapprehend the demeanour of the people who so cordially
welcomed Jenner’s advertisement. It is always a mistake to
criticise the conduct of an earlier generation by the light of a
later. We turn history to ill account when we use it to nourish our
self-complacency; for the probability is that had we lived with our
forefathers, we should have done exactly as they did.
Some will ask, How did it ever come to pass that so many doctors
in 1800 signed Ring’s testimonial certifying that inoculation
with cowpox was a sure and everlasting protection from smallpox
when they had not, and could not have, any experience to warrant
their assertion? True, but they had an illusory experience by which
they were beguiled, namely, the Variolous Test. Hundreds were
inoculated with cowpox and subsequently with smallpox, and were
also exposed to smallpox contagion, and as the disease did not
take, it was concluded it could never take, and that the subjects
of the operation were fortified for ever. The fallacy is now
manifest, but it was by no means manifest in 1800, and all manner
of men received and propagated the fable with energetic sincerity.
It was once admitted that a tub full of water did not overflow when
a fish was slipped into it, and many explanations were current of
the curious phenomenon until a sceptical spirit suggested that the
experiment be tried. A like spirit might have suggested that it was
expedient to wait and see whether cowpox was indeed a perpetual
defence against smallpox, inasmuch as nature had an awkward habit
of confuting prognostications apparently irrefragable.
The ease with which it was asserted cowpox inoculation could be
performed, coupled with its harmlessness, not to say wholesomeness,
and the absolute security it afforded against smallpox, induced
benevolent busybodies to set up as vaccinators all over the
country. What the kindly quack delights in is something cheap and
handy with a touch of mystery and the promise of immeasurable
advantage--conditions which the new practice completely fulfilled.
The memoirs of the time, especially of the Evangelical party,
abound with instances in which this good soul and that good soul
had vaccinated so many hundreds or thousands, delivering them from
the peril of an awful disease. Thus in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_,
for December, 1800, we read--
Two respectable families near Manchester have within these few
months inoculated upwards of 800 of the neighbouring poor from
two months old to twenty years with uniform success. Twenty of
them were subjected to the variolous test, and all were found
proof against the disease.
And John Ring relates--
Dr. Jenner lately met in a large party of fashion a lady of
Portman Square, who, with another lady, has inoculated 1300 in
the north of England. The rural swain, when he receives the
blessing of Jenner’s discovery from such a fair hand, must
conclude that the Goddess of Health has adopted the practice.[123]
Of course medical practitioners had little favour for this sort
of intrusion into their domain, but Jenner encouraged and boasted
himself in the domestic diffusion of the discovery. By and by
when disasters became common it was found extremely convenient
to ascribe them to these unskilled operators; and ultimately
vaccination was resigned entirely to the legally qualified
practitioner, whose failures are rarely inquired into, and when
proclaimed are, as professional matter of course, explicitly denied.
Jenner after six months of lionising left London on 23rd June,
1800, and on his way home passed through Oxford where he was
introduced to Dr. Marlow, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and
other dignitaries, who subscribed the following testimonial, drawn
up by Sir Christopher Pegge, Reader in Anatomy--
We, whose names are undersigned, are fully satisfied upon the
conviction of our own observation, that the Cowpox is not only
an infinitely milder disease than the Smallpox, but has the
advantage of not being contagious, and is an effectual remedy
against the Smallpox.
When a prophet in the country turns out a prophet in London
his country neighbours begin to believe in him; and thus it
was with Jenner. His metropolitan reputation was reflected in
Gloucestershire. Earl Berkeley wrote to the Duke of Beaufort--
Every father of a family owes the greatest obligation to Dr.
Jenner for preventing the dreadful effects of the smallpox.
And the sense of this obligation took shape in a service of plate
presented in 1801 and bearing this inscription--
PRESENTED BY
THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY OF
THE COUNTY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE
TO THEIR COUNTRYMAN
EDWARD JENNER, M.D., F.R.S.
AS A TESTIMONY OF THE HIGH SENSE THEY ENTERTAIN OF THOSE
EMINENT ABILITIES WHICH DISCOVERED AND THAT
DISINTERESTED PHILANTHROPY WHICH
PROMULGATED
THE VACCINE INOCULATION.
FOOTNOTES:
[119] Meaning thereby, as happened under Woodville at Battle Bridge
Hospital where Smallpox and Cowpox were incurred simultaneously.
[120] _A Treatise on the Cowpox containing the History of Vaccine
Inoculation._ By John Ring. Part i. p. 297. London, 1801.
[121] _Ib._ Part ii. p. 720. London, 1803.
[122] _The Beauties of the Edinburgh Review_, alias _the Stink-Pot
of Literature_. By John Ring. London, 1807. P. 49.
[123] _Treatise on the Cowpox_, p. 520. London, 1801.