But among the new things which the people were to try in that century
was one which led to most beneficient results. For many generations
the great scourge of Europe was the smallpox. Often the disease was
as violent as the plague (S474), and carried off nearly as many
victims. Medical art, seemed powerless to deal with it, and even in
years of ordinary health in England about one person out of ten died
of this loathsome pestilence. In the early part of George I's reign,
Lady Mary Montagu, then traveling to Turkey, wrote that the Turks were
in the habit of inoculating their children for the disease, which
rendered it much milder and less fatal, and that she was about to try
the experiment on her own son.
Later, Lady Montagu returned to England, and through her influence and
example the practice was introduced there, 1721. It was tried first
on five criminals in Newgate who had been sentenced to the gallows,
but were promised their freedom if they would consent to the
operation. As it proved a complete success, the Princess of Wales,
with the King's consent, caused it to be tried on her daughter, with
equally good results.
The medical profession, however, generally refused to sanction the
practice, and the clergy in many cases preached against it as an
"invention of Satan, intended to counteract the purposes of an
all-wise Providence." But through the perseverance and good sense of
Lady Montagu, with a few others, the new practice gradually gained
ground. Subsequently Dr. Jenner began to make experiments of a
different kind, which led, late in the century (1796-1798), to the
discovery of vaccination, by which millions of lives have been saved;
this, and the discovery of the use of ether in our own time (S615),
may justly be called two of the greatest triumphs of the art of
medicine.