A DISHONOURABLE TRANSFORMATION.
Honour was abundant, but honour is windy fare, and Jenner had an
eye for something more substantial. Among his papers we read--
While the vaccine discovery was progressive, the joy I felt at
the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take
away from the world one of its greatest calamities, _blended with
the fond hope of enjoying independence_ and domestic peace and
happiness, was often so excessive that, in pursuing my favourite
subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself in a
kind of reverie. It is pleasant to me to recollect that these
reflections always ended in devout acknowledgments to that Being
from whom this and all other mercies flow.[124]
But how was the fond hope of enjoying independence to be realised?
The question was discussed by Jenner and his friends, and it was
finally decided to apply to the House of Commons for a reward. But
in order to go to Parliament it was necessary to have a good case,
and Jenner’s case was open to various objections. _The Inquiry_,
published in 1798, was by no means a manual of practice. Its
prescription was Horsegrease Cowpox; but such Cowpox was neither
producible nor accounted tolerable. Cowpox that did not originate
in Horsegrease, Jenner had adjudged spurious; and yet such spurious
Cowpox had been adopted by Pearson and Woodville, and under their
influence had obtained extraordinary popularity. It was therefore
by no means improbable that any claim for cash wherewith to enjoy
independence might be seriously contested. In this strait, what
was to be done? The question was a grave one, and called for a
heroic solution. Resolved therefore, that Horsegrease Cowpox be
dropped, and with it the use of escharotics for the subjugation of
the pustules produced thereby. Absolute silence should thenceforth
be his rule as to Horsegrease. So much for the negative position:
the positive was more difficult. To claim Cowpox as his own, with
the modes of its exhibition devised by Pearson, was an evolution
full of hazard, but unless prepared to surrender “the fond hope of
enjoying independence,” it must be effected. He had advantages.
His name was associated with the new practice: even Pearson had
done him homage: neither the medical profession nor the public were
likely to study the _Inquiry_ critically, or to trouble their heads
over obscure details: Cowpox was to them Cowpox: he had the world’s
ear; and opposition would be set down as the ordinary behaviour of
envy toward success. Anyhow the transformation must be attempted:
otherwise, farewell to dreams of financial independence.
To initiate this transformation, Jenner came to London, and in May,
1801, published a quarto pamphlet of twelve pages, entitled _The
Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation_.
First it was necessary to represent that his investigations had
extended over many years--a fact of which there was no sign in the
_Inquiry_, the evidence indeed being distinctly otherwise; and thus
he shaped his statement--
My inquiry into the nature of the Cowpox commenced upwards of
twenty-five years ago. My attention to this singular disease
was first excited by observing that among those whom in the
country I was frequently called upon to inoculate, many resisted
every effort to give them the Smallpox. These patients I found
had undergone a disease they called the Cowpox, contracted by
milking Cows affected with a peculiar eruption on their teats.
On inquiry, it appeared it had been known among the dairies
from time immemorial, and that a vague opinion prevailed that
it was a preventive of the Smallpox. This opinion I found was
comparatively new among them; for all the older farmers declared
they had no such idea in their early days--a circumstance that
seemed easily to be accounted for, from my knowing that the
common people were very rarely inoculated for the Smallpox
till that practice was rendered general by the improved method
introduced by the Suttons: so that the working people in the
dairies were seldom put to the test of the preventive powers of
the Cowpox.
Jenner’s design in the foregoing statement was manifest. It was to
minimise the faith of the country folk, and to represent that by
his own perspicacity he had discovered the virtue of Cowpox through
his failures to inoculate with Smallpox. The inquiries of Pearson
and others, however, showed conclusively that in many parts of the
south of England, in Ireland, and on the Continent it was believed
that to have suffered from Cowpox was to be secure from Smallpox;
and the belief was entertained altogether independently of failures
to inoculate with Smallpox; just as a similar belief prevailed
among farriers as to the prophylaxy of Horsegrease. The faith
in Cowpox was neither vague, nor new, nor confined to Jenner’s
neighbourhood; and his assertion to the contrary showed with what
hardihood he had undertaken to construct a case in his own favour.
In opposition to the rural faith, medical men maintained that it
was possible to have Smallpox after Cowpox; and surgeons averred
that they had successfully inoculated many who had suffered Cowpox.
Indeed it was indubitable professional testimony to this effect
that compelled Jenner to forsake his first fancy for Cowpox,
and to report the true specific as Horsegrease Cowpox. Having,
however, to sacrifice that discovery, and revert to the Cowpox he
had discredited, a fresh manœuvre was requisite; and thus was it
performed--
In the course of the investigation I found that some of those
_who seemed to have undergone the Cowpox_, nevertheless, on
inoculation with the Smallpox, felt its influence just the same
as if no disease had been communicated to them by the Cow. This
occurrence led me to inquire among the medical practitioners in
the country around me, who all agreed in this sentiment, that
the Cowpox was not to be relied upon as a certain preventive of
the Smallpox. This for a while damped, but did not extinguish my
ardour; for as I proceeded I had the satisfaction to learn that
the Cow was subject to some varieties of spontaneous eruptions
upon her teats, that were all capable of communicating sores to
the hands of the milkers, and that whatever sore was derived
from the animal was called in the dairy the Cowpox. Thus I
surmounted a great obstacle, and, in consequence, was led to form
a distinction between these diseases, one of which only I have
denominated the _true_, the others the _spurious_ Cowpox, as they
possess no specific power over the constitution.
Here we have the trick before us at the very point of
transformation. He consulted with medical practitioners, “who
all agreed that Cowpox was not to be relied upon as a certain
preventive of Smallpox.” True. What did he do next? He discovered
that what Cowpox did not prevent, the variety derived from
Horsegrease did. Such was the original revelation of 1798. In 1801
we have a different story, and his quest a different issue. Not
a word about the discovery of the sure preventive in Horsegrease
Cowpox--not one word! Although his ardour was damped by the medical
evidence against Cowpox, he yet prosecuted his inquiry; and to his
satisfaction ascertained that what the milkers called Cowpox was
not always Cowpox, but that any sores whatever derived from the
Cow were so designated. He therefore was led to form a distinction
between the diseases, and to denominate one as _true_ and the
others as _spurious_ Cowpox.
Thus the Horse, the obnoxious Horse, was got rid of, and the
Cow represented as of herself yielding pox, which pox was the
Cowpox that Pearson and Woodville (in contempt of Jenner’s 1798
revelation) had brought into fashion; and which it had become all
essential for Jenner to claim as his own in order to realise his
“fond hope of enjoying independence.”
In this connection the question occurs, Why should “some varieties
of spontaneous eruptions” have been designated _spurious_ Cowpox?
Such eruptions were not Cowpox in any sense. Why then spurious?
That Cows communicated a variety of sores to their milkers,
described by them in common as Cowpox, was an assertion for which
Jenner never adduced any evidence; which, too, (as we shall see)
at a later date he disowned as a misapprehension. Nevertheless
spurious Cowpox got the New Inoculation over many difficulties.
When Smallpox, or any notable mischief, followed Cowpox it was
said, “Ah! the Cowpox must have been spurious; for Smallpox, or
any harm, is impossible after true Cowpox.” People did not stay to
inquire whether spurious Cowpox (that was to say, matter “from a
variety of sores on the Cow,” according to Jenner’s second version)
could be propagated from arm-to-arm, even if taken from the Cow by
mistake. The illusory Variolous Test and the Spurious Cowpox Dodge
worked marvellously for the public deception.
Another point Jenner tried to score at the cost of Pearson and
Woodville. When they began to inoculate they found they had to
ascertain at what period the virus should be taken from the Cow,
and from the arms of the inoculated. Jenner afforded them no
guidance. Writing to John Ring, 1st July, 1801, he confessed--
In the early part of my inoculations I had not learned to
discriminate between the efficacy of the virus taken at an early
and at a late period of the pustule.[125]
Where Jenner had not learned to discriminate, the line became clear
in the course of general practice; and Pearson was especially
explicit as to the right time for taking virus; but to make good
his claim to national consideration, Jenner fancied it necessary
to exhibit himself as complete master of the art of Cowpox
Inoculation, owing nothing to others; and he therefore proceeded to
appropriate the fruit of the common medical experience, assigning
it to a season when he alone was in the field. Referring to his
separation of true from spurious Cowpox, he thus prosecuted his
raid--
This impediment to my progress was not long removed before
another, of far greater magnitude in appearance, started up.
There were not wanting instances to prove that when the true
Cowpox broke out among the cattle at a dairy, the person who
had milked an infected animal, and had thereby gone through the
disease in common with others, was liable to receive the Smallpox
afterwards. This, like the former obstacle, gave a painful check
to my fond and aspiring hopes; but reflecting that the operations
of Nature are generally uniform, and that it was not probable the
human constitution (having undergone the Cowpox) should in some
instances be perfectly shielded from the Smallpox, and in many
others remain unprotected, I resumed my labours with redoubled
ardour. The result was fortunate; for I now discovered that the
virus of Cowpox was liable to undergo progressive changes from
the same cause precisely as that of Smallpox, and that when
it was applied to the human skin in its degenerated state, it
would produce the ulcerated effects in as great a degree as when
it was not decomposed, and sometimes far greater; but having
lost its _specific properties_, it was incapable of producing
that change upon the human frame which is requisite to render
it insusceptible of the variolous contagion: so that it became
evident a person might milk a Cow one day, and having caught the
disease, _be for ever secure_; while another person, milking the
same Cow the next day, might feel the influence of the virus in
such a way as to produce a sore, or sores, and, in consequence of
this, might experience an indisposition to a considerable extent;
yet, as has been observed, the specific quality being lost, the
constitution would receive no peculiar impression....
This observation will fully explain the source of those errors
which have been committed by many inoculators of the Cowpox.
Conceiving the whole process to be extremely simple, as not to
admit of a mistake, they have been heedless about the state of
the Vaccine Virus; and finding it limpid, as part of it will
be, even in an advanced state of the pustule, they have felt an
improper confidence, and sometimes mistaken a spurious pustule
for that which possesses the perfect character.
No one apparently thought it worth while to expose the fictitious
character of these statements, invented by Jenner to justify his
pretensions and to baffle objections. Any careful reader of the
_Inquiry_ of 1798, and the _Origin of Vaccine Inoculation_ of 1801,
cannot fail to perceive the radical inconsistency of the earlier
and later narratives, and how a few hasty experiments enveloped in
unverifiable conjecture and gossip, came to be magnified into years
of arduous research.
He wound up his statement with this flourish and prediction--
The distrust and scepticism which naturally arose in the minds of
medical men, on my first announcing so unexpected a discovery,
has now nearly disappeared. Many hundreds of them from actual
experience, have given their attestations that the inoculated
Cowpox proves a perfect security against the Smallpox; and I
shall probably be within compass if I say thousands are ready to
follow their example; for the scope that this Inoculation has now
taken is immense. An hundred thousand persons, upon the smallest
computation, have been inoculated in these realms. [May, 1801.]
The numbers who have partaken of its benefits throughout Europe
and other parts of the globe are incalculable; and it now becomes
too manifest to admit of controversy, that the annihilation of
the Smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species,
must be the final result of this practice.
For the end designed--to establish and exalt a claim with the
purpose of exacting corresponding recompense, the _Origin of the
Vaccine Inoculation_ was an adroitly drawn document: its veracity
is a different matter. A just man, not to say a generous, would
have had some praise for Pearson, Woodville, and others to whom
the extension of the New Inoculation was due; but Jenner was
essentially a mean spirit; and for him to have stated his case
truly would have been to jeopardise “the fond hope of enjoying
independence.”
FOOTNOTES:
[124] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. i., p. 140.
[125] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. i., p. 448.