THE ROYAL JENNERIAN SOCIETY.
Jenner, jealous of Pearson, was anxious to supersede the
Institution for the Inoculation of the Vaccine Pock established
by him in 1799; but Jenner was what Scots call “a feckless
creature,” whose wishes rarely issue in fruit. After his success
in Parliament, he did not remain in London to improve his
opportunities, but retreated to domestic quiet at Berkeley and
Cheltenham. His friends, however, were mindful of him, and Dr.
Hawes, Mr. Addington, surgeon, Benjamin Travers, and Joseph Leaper
met in Queen Street, City, 3rd December, 1802, and resolved
to establish a “JENNERIAN SOCIETY for the Extinction of the
Small-Pox.” Mr. Addington transmitted the resolution of the meeting
to Jenner, saying--
We look to your direction and assistance, and feel very desirous
of knowing when it is probable we may have the pleasure of seeing
you in town.
Joseph Fox of Lombard Street, dentist and enthusiastic promoter of
the new inoculation, also wrote to him, 4th December, soliciting
his co-operation--
The plan which is in agitation is of the most extensive and
liberal kind. It is even expected that the Royal countenance
will be gained; but much depends upon thee. All are looking
toward thee as the proper person to lay the foundation-stone. It
would be well if this could be done in the course of the present
year, particularly as it is the memorable time when the practice
received parliamentary sanction.
But the ease-loving Jenner was not to be drawn. He wrote to Mr.
Addington from Berkeley, 10th December, 1802--
Your very obliging letter found me just returned with my wife
and children to our pleasant home, where I promised myself a few
weeks of domestic comfort after some years spent in constant
anxieties.
This is the pull on one side. On the other is the delightful
prospect held up to my view of an Establishment for the promotion
of Universal Vaccine Inoculation--an establishment to which I
have for years been looking forward with a longing eye.
I need not go farther into explanation, and shall only say, that
if it be incompatible with the generous design to suffer me to
remain here for the time I had allowed myself, I will certainly
comply with the wishes of my friends and go to town. Yet it must
be observed that I humbly conceive and ardently hope that my
presence will not be absolutely necessary. I have written to my
friend Dr. Lettsom and requested him to have the kindness to be
(as far as such a thing is admissible) my representative. In his
judgment on the present occasion I can place every confidence.
The letter describes the man. He did not like to be troubled--not
even when action stood for the advancement of his own glory. As
Pearson observed, “If Vaccination had been left to Jenner, it would
never have come to anything.” Benjamin Travers also wrote to him
at the same time urging the necessity of his presence in London,
but he was put off with similar excuses and with expectations of
assistance from the public purse--
Government, I have no doubt, will give due support to so just
and laudable an undertaking. I am warranted in this suggestion
by a long conversation I had with Mr. Abbott, Speaker of the
House of Commons, who said that after the investigation of the
Parliamentary Committee he thought it became a public duty to
form Institutions for Gratuitous Inoculation.
As Jenner was not to be had, the promoters set to work without him,
and their triumph was complete when at a meeting in the London
Tavern on 17th February, 1803, it was announced that his Majesty
had graciously condescended to become the patron of “THE ROYAL
JENNERIAN SOCIETY for the Extermination of the Smallpox:” that
her Majesty had with great benignity acquiesced in the request to
become patroness: that his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and
their Royal Highnesses the Duke of York, the Duke of Clarence, and
the Duke of Cumberland, had evinced, in a most flattering manner,
their willingness to accept the office of vice-patrons: that his
Grace the Duke of Bedford had consented to fill the office of
president; and that many prelates, noblemen, and gentlemen of the
highest rank and respectability had agreed to be vice-presidents of
the Society.
The approval of the Prince of Wales was conveyed in a letter
of the Earl of Egremont, over which Baron, Jenner’s biographer
(writing when the Prince had blossomed into George IV.), bursts
into worship in capitals, as follows--
The gracious and beneficent mind of the Illustrious writer is
displayed in every line; and the whole is truly characteristic of
those great qualities which continue to add lustre to his still
more EXALTED STATION and shed so much of real glory on his REIGN.
Subscriptions flowed in freely. The Corporation of London gave
£500, the East India Company £100, the Duke of Bedford £50, and
guineas ten, five, two and one were contributed with a liberality
that attested the fervour of the common credulity. But it was much
easier to get money than to administer it with a nice adjustment of
means to ends. The Jennerians, too, were over-organised. There were
a Medical Council and a Board of Directors. The Medical Council
consisted of twenty-five Physicians and twenty-two Surgeons of the
first eminence in London, with Jenner for president and Lettsom for
vice-president. Such mechanism could never work, and at the point
where real business was to be transacted, an officer was selected
of extraordinary character.
John Walker was born at Cockermouth in 1759, and was a
school-fellow of Woodville, subsequently physician to the London
Smallpox Hospital. After a rambling career as blacksmith, engraver,
and school-master, he turned his attention to medicine, graduated
at Leyden, associated with French revolutionists in the guise of
a member of the Society of Friends; then accompanied Dr. Marshall
in a vaccinating cruise to the Mediterranean, from whence, after
a variety of adventures in war and weather, he appeared in London
in 1802, habited as a Quaker with a long beard--an apparition in a
clean shaven community. Joseph Fox, the dentist of Lombard Street,
gave him the use of a part of his house, and there, in his own
words, “I set up my VACCINIUM for the glorious cause.” As soon as
the Jennerian Society was initiated, Walker was put forward by
Joseph Fox and other Friends as inoculator-in-chief, and Walker
made application in the following terms--
TO THE JENNERIAN SOCIETY.
Friends,--Perhaps there is not any individual who has greater
reason to be gratified with the interest ye are taking in the
Vacciole Inoculation than myself.
Of late years, the practice of it has been the chief business
of my life, and I am partly indebted, during some of the last
months, to the zeal of individual members of your Society for
being enabled to continue it. They have sent patients to me from
remote and distant parts of this extensive City, when, for want
of notoriety, I might otherwise have been unemployed.
May I offer to you my services in this way: during the infancy
of your Institution, you cannot do me a greater pleasure than to
increase my number of patients; for where I now vacciolate tens,
I could easily do the same for hundreds.
After this declaration, I hope you will consider the present
address as neither unseasonable nor intrusive, but rather as a
mark of unwavering zeal in the happy cause in which ye are now
embarking.
Respectfully,
JOHN WALKER.
_54 Lombard Street_, 29. xii., 1802.
When the day of election arrived, four, out of many, were selected
as candidates, one of them being Dr. Domeier, a German, strongly
recommended by the Queen and Prince of Wales; but the Friends stood
by their man, and Dr. Walker was appointed Resident Inoculator at
the Central House of the Society in Salisbury Square with a salary
of £200 a year, coal and candles, and liberty to take fees for
private “vacciolation.”
The promoters of the Society, operating under the prestige of
Jenner’s name, resolved to hold their annual festival on his
birthday, the 17th of May; and at the first dinner in 1803 he was
subjected to flatteries enough to turn any man’s head who does not
know the reckless insincerity that prevails on such occasions. It
was the adulation connected with the formation of this Society that
as much as anything induced Jenner to set up as west-end physician.
The attempt of the middle-aged country doctor was the occasion
of much grim humour, and his consequent embarrassments were the
concern of his friends for many a day. Apart from the inherent
difficulties of the enterprise (social rather than medical) Jenner
was constitutionally deficient in method and assiduity. Wrapped
up in his wife and family, business was always set aside when
they claimed his affectionate regard; and to leave London for
Gloucestershire for some domestic cause was in his eyes procedure
that required no defence--all which might be amiable, but it
constantly annoyed and frustrated his associates; and it is not
thus encumbered that any man can expect to make way in the world.
When the anniversary in 1804 came round, Jenner was at Berkeley,
and when pressed to attend he wrote--
Though a post-chaise might bring up my body, my mind would be
left behind. One cause of my absence, among many others, is the
sad state of Mrs. Jenner’s health. I cannot leave her even for a
day with any comfort to my feelings. My friends, who honour the
glorious cause of Vaccination by assembling on the 17th, will,
I trust, admit my apology. It is my intention to collect a few
staunch Vaccinists on that day at my cottage. I shall give them
some roast beef, not forgetting a horn or two of good October. We
shall close the day with bumpers of milk-punch to the health of
the Friends of Humanity at the Crown and Anchor; and if it were
not for the indisposition of my poor wife, we should roar like
bulls.
If Jenner was idle and self-indulgent, Walker was the reverse. He
was a fine specimen of the GENUS, _Fanatic_. Possessed with a lust
for what he called Vacciolation, he had a brow of brass, nerves of
steel, and habits like clockwork. Thirteen stations were opened in
London where cowpox was inoculated gratis, and in eighteen months
Walker was able to announce that 12,288 patients had been operated
on, and that 19,352 charges of virus had been dispatched to the
country and foreign parts; whereon Baron observes--
The effect of these exertions was immediately perceived by a
striking diminution of the number of deaths from smallpox within
the Bills of Mortality. In 1803 they amounted to 1173; in 1804
they were only 622. The contrast will appear still greater when
it is considered that the deaths amounted to 2409 in the year
1800; and that the annual average of deaths for fifty years
previously was 2018.[131]
The passage is noteworthy as representative of many similar
passages in the literature of Vaccination. It might be described as
dishonest, but the craft is so transparent that the epithet would
be extravagant. The probable explanation is, that Vaccination had
come to be regarded as so unquestionably beneficial that _anything_
might be asserted in its favour, and that _anything_ was true.
Else a child might have asked how 12,000 or 24,000 vaccinations
could by any possibility affect an immediate diminution in the
deaths from smallpox in a population of eight or nine hundred
thousand. Baron would also lead his readers to suppose that the
low mortality of 1804, namely 622, was unexampled, though with the
Bills of Mortality before him, he might have seen that the deaths
in 1797 fell to 522; and he knew that the low figure of 1804 was
not maintained, but rose to 1685 in 1805. But as remarked, _any
statement_, if only it be favourable to Vaccination, is expected to
pass muster as veracious, and the public credulity justifies the
expectation.
Let us look at the London Bills for ourselves, taking the last ten
years of the 18th and the first ten years of the 19th Centuries,
and try to discover what they teach.
Burials from From From From
Years. all Diseases. Smallpox. Fevers. Measles.
1791 18,760 1747 2013 156
1792 20,213 1568 2236 450
1793 21,749 2382 2426 248
1794 19,241 1913 1935 172
1795 21,179 1040 1947 328
1796 19,288 3548 1547 307
1797 17,014 522 1526 222
1798 18,155 2237 1754 196
1799 18,134 1111 1784 233
1800 23,068 2409 2712 395
------- ------ ------ ----
196,801 18,477 19,880 2707
It is to be observed, that we have not here the record of the
deaths in the whole of London, but merely the number of intramural
interments, which diminished as a number of graveyards became
gorged beyond capacity of decomposition and assimilation, and
relief was sought in the cemeteries of extra-mural parishes, such
as St. Pancras and Marylebone. It is only thus that the diminishing
number of burials (which ranged from 25,000 to 30,000 during many
years of the 18th Century) is to be accounted for. In this light we
have to consider the following table, where we note fewer burials,
less smallpox, less fevers, but more measles.
Burials from From From From
Years. all Diseases. Smallpox. Fevers. Measles.
1801 19,374 1461 2908 36
1802 19,379 1579 2201 559
1803 19,582 1202 2326 438
1804 17,038 622 1702 619
1805 17,565 1685 1307 523
1806 17,938 1158 1354 530
1807 18,334 1297 1033 452
1808 19,954 1169 1168 1386
1809 16,680 1163 1066 106
1810 19,893 1198 1139 1031
------- ------ ------ ----
185,737 12,534 16,204 5680
From whatever cause there was an abatement of smallpox, but it was
a continuous abatement which had set in before Jenner was heard
of; and at the same time we must repeat that at this day (when all
swear by the unity of Nature and the correlation and convertibility
of her forces) it is grossly unscientific to pick out smallpox
from the zymotic diseases and deal with it as an independent
entity. It is a fever among fevers, bred and propagated in the same
conditions, and can never be studied apart from its associates
without serious misunderstanding.
These Bills of Mortality, as compared with the more accurate
statistics of our own time, are of little value; but, such as
they are, they are constantly referred to, and their items used,
as by Baron, as pretexts for most unwarrantable assertions. Any
influence of Vaccination on the smallpox mortality of 1801-10 was
practically nothing. Vaccination was limited to a few thousands,
and those chiefly of the classes least subject to the disease. The
great seething mass of metropolitan squalor, in which smallpox and
typhus were endemic, was untouched by the vaccine lancet. If the
new practice did good, it was in discrediting and discouraging the
culture of smallpox in variolous inoculation.
To return to the ROYAL JENNERIAN SOCIETY. Its halcyon-days were
of brief duration. Enthusiasm abated, subscriptions fell off,
cases of smallpox after vaccination came to be heard of, and
serious illness and death consequent upon “the benign and harmless
operation.” Opponents waxed bold and could not be silenced. Then
jealousies and dissensions began to operate within the Society.
The financial secretary strove with the medical secretary. Dr.
Walker’s habits and eccentricities, viewed at first with amusement,
excited irritation and disgust, whilst Jenner’s easy-going mode of
life and impecuniosity were a source of scandal and distrust. The
climax was reached in 1806 when Jenner and Walker were set openly
at loggerheads, and a fight to the death ensued.
Walker, it is to be said, never treated Jenner with respect. Like
Pearson he took stock of his merits, and did not rate them highly,
and would not listen to his dictation. “Vaccination,” he used to
observe, “is extremely simple as to facts, while, as to causes,
it is entirely out of the reach of medical men with all their
theories.” Jenner, as president of the Medical Council, thought he
had a right to be obeyed, but Walker was the last man in the world
to yield obedience when he had formed an opposite conviction--
Jenner [writes Baron] considered it his duty to admonish him,
and repeatedly represented to him, in the most friendly manner,
the mischievous tendency of his innovations. These remonstrances
were unavailing, and he ceased to have any communication with Dr.
Walker after the summer of 1805; submitting rather to lament in
silence the fate of the Society than come before it as a public
accuser.
Of course such forbearance could not last long, and instructions
issued by Walker to the Nottingham Vaccine Institution in March,
1806, were made the occasion of an open rupture. Jenner brought
Walker’s conduct under the consideration of the Medical Council,
and secured his condemnation. The question was then referred
to the General Court of the Society on the 25th of July, when a
motion that Walker he dismissed from his office was negatived by a
majority of three, Walker being supported by Sir Joseph Banks and
Jenner by Dr. Sims. But the victory was not satisfactory to Walker,
and on the 8th of August he put an end to the strife by sending in
his resignation.
Baron’s solemn account of the contest must appal every ingenuous
reader. Jenner, it is written, regarded Walker’s proceedings as of
“the most dangerous character,” as “placing in peril the safety of
the practice,” and “as likely to wreck the Society”; so that had
he not retired Jenner would have been compelled to withdraw his
countenance from Salisbury Square. As we read we exclaim, Whatever
did the dreadful Doctor do? Here is Baron’s answer--
It is unnecessary to mention the specific instances of misconduct
which were established. They regarded even the very name of the
affection; the method of managing the pustules; the characters of
correct vaccination; the precautions to be observed in conducting
the practice, etc., etc.
Moore states the offence plainly--
Walker’s method of taking lymph was to cut open the vesicles, and
to wipe out the contents with lint, in order to procure the fresh
secretion. This harsh treatment of infants was the reverse of
that which he was directed to employ; and as he was unalterable
in his resolution, it was at length deemed necessary to remove
him.[132]
Turning to the _Life of Walker_, by Dr. Epps, we have the
difference ’twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee still further
illustrated--
Two different modes have been adopted in taking the matter of
inoculation from the vaccinated subject: one, by making punctures
round the outer part of the pock, Dr. Jenner’s mode; the other,
by removing the crust or scab from the centre of the pock,
wiping out the fluid beneath it, and then taking the matter,
indiscriminately, from any part of the whole substance of the
pock, Dr. Walker’s mode.[133]
As in brawls and wars generally, the ostensible offence is rarely
the true or entire offence, so when we revert to the events of
1805-6 we discover that Vaccination was being found out, and that
Walker served Jenner’s purpose opportunely as scape-goat. Walker’s
behaviour, too, constituted him a convenient victim. Many who
cared nothing for his mode of “taking lymph” had been hurt by his
scorn of their self-importance, and were ready to assist Jenner in
effecting his humiliation. Mr. Cline, the surgeon, after listening
to many speeches against Walker, summed up the indictment, “All
they complain of are his _dress_ and _address_.” A naval officer,
meeting Walker on 25th July, said, “I came to town to-day to hold
up my hand in your support. You and Jenner do not agree over some
trifles, and your enemies wish to turn the fact to your hurt, but
they have been beaten. Is the man who launches a vessel the only
one who can navigate her? If Jenner were to live for fifty years to
come, he could never have the authority of your experience.”
Jenner’s victory over Walker was utterly disastrous: it destroyed
the Royal Jennerian Society. The substantial supporters of the
Society were the adherents of Walker, and with him they seceded,
secured another house in Salisbury Square, and established THE
LONDON VACCINE INSTITUTION with Walker for manager. The remnant of
the Jennerian Society appointed James Sheridan Knowles, a young
Irish surgeon, as Walker’s successor, and for distinction purchased
him the degree of M.D. from St. Andrews. He had the suavity that
Walker disdained, and little else beside. He neglected his duties,
and soon the traffic in the “benign fluid” was transferred to the
new establishment. Ultimately the lease, fixtures, and furniture
of the Jennerian house were disposed of, and a retreat effected to
humbler offices, until in 1813 what remained of the Society was
incorporated in Walker’s concern.
Walker obtained much assistance from members of the Society of
Friends, and the fact affords Moore (Jenner’s apologist) occasion
for certain sneers. He describes the meetings in Salisbury Square
as--
Shaded with the Quakers’ broad-brimmed hats; for their schismatic
assiduity was most conspicuous, though their primitive meekness
was indiscernible. In support of their friend, they argued slyly,
wrangled tumultuously, and voted almost unanimously. Yet, in
spite of this contentious pertinacity, the turbulent Quaker, on
the motion of Dr. Jenner, was dismissed from his office, and
peace was restored.
Dismissed he was not, and the peace that ensued on his resignation
was destruction. The success of Walker’s Institution (necessarily
dependent on subscriptions) he accounts for by an anecdote like
this--
A noble Duke informed me that on a sultry day a steaming, squab,
broad-faced man, in a Quaker’s garb, with his hat on his head,
entered his room, saying, “Friend, I am come on a charitable
mission to request thy mite.” The Duke, amused with the oddness
of the salutation, desired him to be seated, and to explain his
business. The Quaker wilily suppressed all mention of disputes
in the Jennerian Society, and of the dismissal of Dr. Walker,
which were the real causes for soliciting this subscription;
and enlarged tediously on the utility of vaccination, and by
awkward encomiums on Dr. Jenner, led the Duke to believe that the
subscription was solicited for a Society approved by him. This
cunning harangue drew forth the Duke’s purse, which the Quaker
spying, unrolled his list, and added his Grace’s name as a decoy
for others; and saying, “Friend, fare thee well,” strutted out
with an uncouth gait and an air of uprightness. By such artifices
a large subscription was raised from those who prefer paying to
inquiry; and in the meantime the Jennerian Society diminished
in numbers, and, undermined by calumnies, declined to its
downfall.[134]
It is not to be imagined, however, that the collapse of the Royal
Jennerian Society disposed of Jenner and his party. There was
Jenner to provide for: he could not with decency be forsaken: and
there was a stock of vaccine virus to be kept up, for which pride
forbade dependence on Walker’s dispensary. It was in vain to appeal
afresh to a benevolent public, whose confidence had gone elsewhere,
and whose suspicions were excited. It was therefore determined to
resort to Government for help. The political influence of the
Jennerian party was considerable, and we shall see to what purpose
it was exerted.
* * * * *
ORIGIN OF THE TERM VACCINATION.
A new practice wants a new name, and it was some time before one
was found for Inoculation with Cowpox. Dr. Walker made use of
Vacciolation and to Vacciolate in 1802; but it was Richard Dunning,
surgeon, of Plymouth, who introduced Vaccination and to Vaccinate.
Jenner writing to Dunning, 2nd April, 1804, observed--
The useful terms Vaccination and to Vaccinate, are undoubtedly
yours, and as such I pronounced them at a meeting of the Royal
Jennerian Society, when an M.D. present mentioned them as
imported from the Continent.[135]
Vaccination is not as yet a term accepted everywhere. Among the
uneducated we hear of being “cut for the cowpock,” or simply of
being “cut.”
Whilst Vaccination was a useful word, it was, and is, often
misapplied. Jenner’s prescription of Horsegrease Cowpox was
Equination rather than Vaccination; and when virus from the
horse was employed neat, Equination was the accurate designation
without question. Again, when virus was generated from Smallpox on
heifers, the subsequent inoculation of the human subject was not
Vaccination but Variolation, or at least Variolous Vaccination. The
virus in public use at this day derived from Horsegrease Cowpox,
Cowpox, Horsepox, Smallpox, Smallpox Cowpox, etc., etc., inoculated
from arm-to-arm, in series prolonged and unsearchable, is called
Vaccination; but it is Vaccination in faith or fancy, evidence to
anything but uncertainty being unattainable.
FOOTNOTES:
[131] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, Vol. i. p. 577.
[132] _History and Practice of Vaccination_, p. 212. By James
Moore. London, 1817.
[133] _Life of John Walker, M.D._, p. 88. By John Epps, M.D. Lond.,
1831.
[134] _History and Practice of Vaccination_, pp. 213-215.
[135] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. ii., p. 336.