SMALL POX AND VACCINATION.
If any thing could excuse the exercise of arbitrary power on the part of a
Government, it would surely be in the act of compelling parents to
vaccinate their children; but the aversion to vaccination being still only
too common among certain classes of the people. Yet surely the law which
punishes parents for ill-usage of their children, might be extended to
punish their leaving these helpless creatures exposed to the infection of
pain and disfigurement? Jenner is decidedly one of the greatest
benefactors of the human race; for the vast increase of population in the
different countries of Europe is ascribed, by many political economists,
to the safeguard of vaccination, which has preserved more lives since its
introduction, than the terrible wars of the present century have
destroyed.
In England, this admirable discovery was far more readily adopted than in
France; where, however versatile in fashions and governments, any
improvement tending to benefit the human race is slowly and cautiously
accepted. In the reign of Louis XIV, the introduction of yeast in the
making of bread met with general opposition; and it required the
interference of the legislature to secure its adoption. The introduction
of bark and emetics was also attended with violent opposition; and
inoculation introduced from Turkey into Western Europe by Lady Mary
Wortley Montague, found great difficulty in establishing itself in France.
It was not, however, surprising that parents should hesitate about giving
their children a loathsome disease; before it became certified by long
experience that the virulence of the disorder was considerably lessened by
preparation; so as to secure a mother against the terrible self-reproaches
arising from the loss of a child under the inoculated malady.
In England, more particularly in the county of Gloucester, from time
immemorial cows were subject to a contagious disease, which infected the
hands of the milkmaids, who were observed never to suffer from the
small-pox. This surmise being confirmed by experiment, Dr. Jenner
established himself in the county of Gloucester; where, by inoculating
people with vaccine matter, he secured them against the small-pox.
So far from turning his discovery to pecuniary account, as most others
would have done, Jenner nobly proclaimed it to mankind, calling upon all
philantrophists to share his triumph.
The Duke de Rochefauld-Liancourt having witnessed the effects of
vaccination in England, introduced it into France, and did more for its
propagation than the slow deliberations of the Parisian Schools of
Medicine. Dr. Pinel, however, tried experiments at the Hospital of the
Salpétrière, with perfect success; while Dr. Aubert was despatched by
Government to England to report upon the subject. The result was
favourable. Matter was imported from England in the month of May, 1800,
when thirty-eight children were vaccinated at the Hospital of La Pitié;
and commissions were instantly instituted throughout France. Jenner had,
however, his opponents. In London, it was denounced from the pulpit, as an
infringement on the dispensation of Providence; and in France, Doctors
Vaume, Chapon and others pronounced vaccination to be injurious to the
human constitution, and capable of reducing man to the condition of a
brute, by the introduction of animal virus into the blood. As if we
resembled a calf or sheep the more for having swallowed a mutton chop or
veal cutlet.
With a few rare exceptions, vaccination has proved a security against the
small-pox, and the practice ought consequently to become universal. But
old women are still to be found with instances of children who have died
of convulsions after vaccination; as if that were the origin of their
illness and death.
Among the lower orders, a prejudice prevails that an inferior kind of
vaccine matter is provided for them; and whenever their children exhibit
symptoms of disease or deformity, they comfort their self-love by
attributing it to the influence of vaccination. "Such maladies were
unknown in their families, till the madness of introducing matter from the
body of a stranger into that of their child conveyed also the germs of
disease."