the succession of the vessels according to established forms. The shoal
at the western extremity of the bay was rounded by eleven of the
British squadron. The Goliath led the way, and when her commander,
Foley, reached the enemy's van, he steered between the outermost ship
and the shoal. The Zealous--Captain Hood--instantly followed. At twenty
minutes past six the two van-ships of the French opened their fire upon
these vessels, but they were soon disabled. Four other British ships
also took their stations inside the French line. Nelson, in the
Vanguard, followed by five of his seventy-fours, anchored on the outer
side of the enemy. Nine of the French fleet were thus placed between the
two fires of eleven of the British ships. The Leander had not been
engaged, having been occupied in the endeavor to assist the Culloden,
which, coming up after dark, ran aground.
Before the sun went down the shore was crowded with the people of the
country gazing upon this terrible conflict. When darkness fell, the
flashes of the guns faintly indicated the positions of the contending
fleets. Each British ship was ordered to carry four lanterns at her
mizzen-peak, and these were lighted at seven o'clock. Each ship also
went into action with the white ensign of St. George, of which the red
cross in the centre rendered it easily distinguishable in the darkest
night at sea. But there was another illumination, more awful than the
flashes of two thousand cannon, which was that night to strike unwonted
dismay into the bravest of the combatants of either nation. Five of the
French ships had surrendered. The Vanguard had been engaged with the
Spartiate and the Aquilon. Her loss was severe.
A splinter had struck Nelson on the head, cutting a large piece of the
flesh and skin from the forehead, which fell over his remaining eye. He
was carried down to the cockpit, and the effusion of blood being very
great, his wound was held to be dangerous, if not mortal, by the anxious
shipmates around him. He was carried where his men were also carried,
without regard to rank, to be tended by the busy surgeons. These left
their wounded to bestow their care on the first man of the fleet. "No,"
said Nelson, "I will take my turn with my brave fellows." Sidney, in the
field of Zuetphen, taking the cup of water from his lips to give to the
dying soldier, with the memorable words, "This man's necessity is more
than mine," was a parallel example of heroism. The Admiral did wait his
turn; and meanwhile, in the belief that his career was ended, called to
his chaplain to deliver a last token of affection to his wife. The wound
was found to be superficial. He was carried to his cabin, and left
alone, amid the din of the battle.
Suddenly the cry was heard that L'Orient, the French flagship of one
hundred twenty guns, was on fire. Nelson groped his way to the deck, to
the astonishment of the crew, who heard their beloved commander giving
his orders that the boats should be lowered to proceed to the help of
the burning vessel. The Bellerophon had been overpowered by the weight
of metal of L'Orient, and had lost her masts. The Swiftsure had also
been engaged with this formidable vessel. Both had maintained an
unremitting fire upon the French flagship. Admiral Brueys had fallen,
and had died the death of a brave man on his deck. The ship was in
flames; at ten o'clock she blew up, the conflagration having lasted for
nearly an hour. When the explosion came, there was an awful silence. For
ten minutes not a gun was fired on either side. The instinct of
self-preservation, as well as the sudden awe on this sublime event,
produced this pause in the battle.
Some of the French, endeavoring to get out of the vicinity of the
burning wreck, had slipped their cables. The nearest of the English took
every precaution to prevent the combustible materials doing them injury.
The shock of the explosion shook the Alexander, Swiftsure, and Orion to
their kelsons and materially injured them. None of the British ships,
however, took fire. About seventy only of the crew of L'Orient were
saved by the English boats. The battle was resumed by the French ship,
the Franklin; and it went on, at intervals, till daybreak. The contest
was sustained by four French line-of-battle ships, and four of the
English. Finally, two of the French line-of-battle ships and two
frigates escaped. Of thirteen sail of the line, nine were taken, two
were burned. Of the British, about nine hundred men were killed and
wounded. No accurate account was obtained of the French loss. The
estimate which represented that loss at five thousand was evidently
exaggerated. About three thousand French prisoners were sent on shore.
Kleber, the French general, wrote to Napoleon, "The English have had the
disinterestedness to restore everything to their prisoners."
After the victory of the Nile, Nelson returned to Naples. He required
rest; and in the ease and luxury, the flattery and the honors which
there awaited him, he forgot his quiet home, and after a time was
involved in public acts which reflect discredit upon his previously
spotless name. At Palermo, Lord Cochrane had opportunities of
conversation with him. He says, "To one of his frequent injunctions,
'Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them,' I subsequently had reason
to consider myself indebted for successful attacks under apparently
difficult circumstances." Cochrane considered Nelson "an embodiment of
dashing courage, which would not take much trouble to circumvent an
enemy, but being confronted with one would regard victory so much a
matter of course as hardly to deem the chance of defeat worth
consideration." This opinion is borne out by a letter which Nelson wrote
to his old friend, Admiral Locker, from Palermo: "It is you who always
said, 'Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him'; and my only merit
in my profession is being a good scholar." Nelson was himself a master
who made many good scholars.
M. Thiers, having described the great naval battle of Abukir with
tolerable fairness, admits that it was the most disastrous that the
French navy had yet experienced--one from which the most fatal military
consequences might be apprehended. The news of the disaster caused a
momentary despair in the French army. Bonaparte received the
intelligence with calmness. "Well," he exclaimed, "we must die here; or
go forth, great, as were the ancients." He wrote to Kleber, "We must do
great things"; and Kleber replied, "Yes, we must do great things: I
prepare my faculties." It would have been fortunate for the fame of
Bonaparte, if he had abstained from doing some of "the great things"
which he accomplished while he remained in the East.
The victory of Nelson formed the great subject of congratulation in the
royal speech, when the session was opened on November 20th. "By this
great and brilliant victory, an enterprise of which the injustice,
perfidy, and extravagance had fixed the attention of the world, and was
peculiarly directed against some of the most valuable interests of the
British Empire, has, in the first instance, been turned to the confusion
of its authors."
FOOTNOTES:
[46] The "Battle of the Baltic," April 2, 1801.--ED.
JENNER INTRODUCES VACCINATION
A.D. 1798
SIR THOMAS J. PETTIGREW
In the advance of medical science no more famous discovery
has been made than that of vaccination, that is, inoculation
with the modified virus of a disease, thereby causing a mild
form of it, in order to prevent a virulent attack. This
treatment has in recent years been applied by the use of
various serums and antitoxins against different diseases;
but, originally and specifically, vaccination, as now
understood, is inoculation with cowpox for the prevention of
smallpox.
Jenner's work in connection with the modern introduction of
this practice is fully described in the following pages. In
a more primitive manner inoculation against smallpox was
practised many centuries ago in India, China, and other
lands. The first modern accounts of it are said to have been
given by a Turkish physician in 1714. In England it was
first actually employed through the efforts of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, who (1716-1718) had observed it in
Constantinople, and there seen her son inoculated. The
practice soon spread through Western Europe and to North
America.
Jenner's discoveries and demonstrations as to the specific
value of the vaccine virus of cowpox, which led to the
modern methods of vaccination for prevention of smallpox,
proved of such efficacy and importance that the whole credit
for this service to medical science has been popularly given
to him. But among the intelligent it detracts nothing from
his just fame to make due acknowledgment of previous work
along similar lines.
There have always been some, since Jenner's time, and are
still considerable numbers of people in different countries,
strongly opposed to vaccination for smallpox, on the ground
of what they deem its unscientific and dangerous nature. But
the vast majority of medical practitioners, and of the world
at large, are convinced of its vital benefits, and in
several countries vaccination is made compulsory by the
State.
Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749. He was a native of Berkeley in
Gloucestershire, England. His father was the vicar of this place, and
his mother was descended from an ancient family in Berkshire. In early
life Jenner was deprived of his father, and the direction of his
education devolved upon an elder brother, the Rev. Stephen Jenner. He
attained a respectable proficiency in the classics, and his taste for
natural history manifested an early development; for, at the age of
nine, he had made a collection of the nests of the dormouse, and he
employed the hours usually devoted by boys to play, in searching for
fossils in the neighborhood. "No childish play to him was pleasing."
Intended for the medical profession, Jenner was apprenticed to Daniel
Ludlow, of Sodbury, near Bristol, to acquire a knowledge of surgery and
pharmacy; and, after the period of his apprenticeship had expired in
1770, he went to London to complete his professional studies, and was a
student at St. George's Hospital, and a resident, for two years, in the
family of the celebrated John Hunter. The similarity of their tastes and
spirit of research will render it a matter of no surprise that he should
become a most favorite pupil. That this was the case in an eminent
degree the correspondence which was maintained between the two great
physiologists sufficiently proves. "There was in both a directness and
plainness of conduct, an unquestionable desire of knowledge, and a
congenial love of truth."
Jenner was remarkable for the neatness and precision with which he made
preparations of anatomy and natural history. His dissection of tender
and delicate organs, his success in minute injections, and the taste he
displayed in their arrangement are said to have been almost unrivalled.
Hunter recommended him to Sir Joseph Banks, to prepare and arrange the
various specimens brought home by the celebrated circumnavigator,
Captain Cook, in his first voyage of discovery in 1771, and he was
solicited to become the naturalist of the succeeding expedition in the
year following; but Jenner's partiality to his native soil, and his
desire of settling in the place of his birth, were too strong to admit
of his being allured into such an appointment. He preferred the
seclusion of a country village; and to this selection do we owe one of
the greatest blessings ever bestowed upon mankind. It is not
unreasonable to suppose that the subject by which he should afterward be
known to the whole world, dwelt upon his mind with considerable force
even at this early period, for the prophylactic powers of the cowpox
were known, or rather rumored of, in a few districts, and the subject
had been mentioned by Jenner to Hunter and others, though he had not
been successful in directing their attention sufficiently to the
importance of it. Indeed, he pressed this subject so much upon his
professional brethren, that, at a medical club at Redborough to which he
belonged, he was threatened to be expelled if he persisted in harassing
them with a proposition which they then conceived had no foundation but
in popular and idle rumor, and which had become so entirely distasteful
to them. It remained, therefore, to Jenner to pursue the inquiry and to
place the whole matter upon a proper physiological basis, by which it
might be rendered permanently beneficial. This inquiry was perfected
amid the labors and anxious toils attendant on the life of "a country
surgeon," with few books to consult, and little leisure to devote to
their perusal. Observation necessarily supplied the place of literary
research; the book of nature was open to his view, and it was one he was
well calculated to comprehend; it surpassed all others, and its
contemplation amply repaid the student.
Of all classes of men with whom it has been the fortune of the writer of
this sketch to associate, there is none, in his opinion, so generally
and so truly amiable as the naturalists. The contemplation of nature
seldom fails to produce an elevation of character; it also begets a
sweetness of disposition flowing from a sense of what is beautiful in
creation; and the evidences of beneficence, everywhere so abundant,
soften the feelings and impart to the individual a sincere benevolence
of heart. This disposition was strikingly manifested in Jenner, to whose
affection, kindness, meekness, good-will, and benevolence so many have
borne the most ample testimony. It was no uncommon thing for Jenner to
be accompanied in his daily professional tour of many miles by friends,
who have eagerly listened to the outpourings of his mind called forth by
the beauties which in the vale of Gloucester surrounded him.
His observations on the structure and economy of the various objects of
natural history were delivered with the most captivating simplicity and
ingenuity. Full of information himself, he delighted to impart it, and
was equally solicitous of obtaining a return from others. He was an
enthusiast in his devotion to nature, and he anxiously desired that all
should participate in the gratification which such a study never failed
to afford. He united in an especial manner a talent for the most
profound observations to a disposition most lively and ardent
distinguished by mirth, playfulness, and wit. With these powers, it is
not surprising that his society should have been much courted; and,
fully engaged as he was by the duties of an extensive practice, he yet
found time to cultivate an acquaintance with polite literature. Many
little productions of his muse have appeared in print; they were
addressed to some of his more favored correspondents, or occasionally
read at convivial meetings, and display the turn of his mind, the
benevolence of his disposition, and the liveliness of his imagination.
His best poetical productions find their subjects in natural history.
_The Signs of Rain_ unites the accuracy of the naturalist with the fancy
of the poet.
Jenner had nearly passed half a century before he made known to the
world his experiments and investigations relative to the vaccine
disease. His first successful vaccination was made May 14, 1769. His
ardor from an early period had been noticed, and it took its rise from
the following accidental circumstance. While a pupil with Mr. Ludlow, a
young countrywoman applied for advice. The subject of smallpox was
mentioned, upon which she observed, "I cannot take that disease, for I
have had the cowpox." This was sufficient to excite the attention of
Jenner, and the incident never escaped his recollection. It is easier to
conceive than to express the emotions which would naturally spring from
reflection on such a subject; his benevolent feelings were at once
aroused to full activity; he pictured to himself all the horrors of that
pestilential and most loathsome disease, disfiguring Nature's greatest
work, slaying thousands upon thousands, and he was yet sufficiently
young to recollect the severity of discipline to which he had himself
submitted in the process preparatory to the practice of inoculation,
which, to use his own words, in that day was no less than that of
"bleeding till the blood was thin; purging till the body was wasted to a
skeleton; and starving on vegetable diet to keep it so."
The patience manifested by Jenner in the prosecution of his inquiry into
the cowpox, the scrutiny to which he subjected every appearance that
presented itself, and the fortitude with which he withstood every
untoward circumstance entitle him to all praise and show forth his
great capabilities for conducting a philosophical investigation. He
divested the subject of all its difficulties and obscurities, and gave
to "vague, inapplicable and useless rumor the certainty and precision of
scientific knowledge." The extent of his anticipations upon this truly
momentous subject do not appear to have been fully stated until 1780,
ten years subsequent to his mention of it to John Hunter. He then
confidentially disclosed to his intimate friend, Edward Gardner--who
gave evidence upon the subject before the committee of the House of
Commons--the opinions he entertained upon the natural history of the
cowpox; dated its origin from the diseased heel of a horse; alluded to
the different diseases with which the hands of the milkers became
affected from handling the infected cows; distinguished that which was
calculated to afford security against the smallpox; and divulged the
hope he entertained of being able finally to eradicate that disease from
the face of the globe. Doctor Baron has recorded the remarkable words
with which this important communication was made:
"I have intrusted a most important matter to you, which I firmly believe
will prove of essential benefit to the human race. I know you, and
should not wish what I have stated to be brought into conversation; for
should anything untoward turn up in my experiments I should be made,
particularly by my medical brethren, the subject of ridicule--for I am
the mark they all shoot at."
Jenner's reasons for concealment did not arise from any selfish or
unworthy motive. The publicity he had always given to the subject and
the efforts he had made among his professional associates to pursue the
inquiry exclude the possibility of entertaining such a suspicion. It
arose from a dread of disappointment and the fear of failure should the
matter be brought forward in a state other than that of a maturity
sufficient to carry conviction immediately upon its promulgation. In the
course of his researches he was led to conclude that swinepox, as well
as cowpox, was only a variety of smallpox. He inoculated his eldest son
with the matter of swinepox and produced a disease similar to a very
mild smallpox. After this, the inoculation of variolous matter would
produce no effect.
He ascertained that cowpox, as it was commonly termed by the milkers,
would frequently fail in effecting a security against the smallpox. This
led him to inquire more particularly into the variety of spontaneous
eruptions to which the teats of the cow were liable, and to discriminate
the different kinds of sores produced by them on the hands of the
milkers, and to establish the character of those which possessed a
specific power over the constitution, and those which had no such
efficacy. He found that instances occurred in which the true cowpox
failed in preventing smallpox; but nothing daunted by this apparently
fatal discovery he set about ascertaining the causes of this deviation.
He found the specific virtues of the virus to have been lost or
deteriorated so that it was rendered capable only of producing a local
affection and had no influence whatever upon the constitution; and by
the greatest ingenuity and patience of observation of the analogies
drawn from the virus of smallpox, aided by his knowledge of the laws of
the animal economy, he discovered that it was only in a certain state of
the vesicle that the virus was capable of affording its protecting
agency, and that when taken under other conditions, or at other periods,
it could produce a local disease, yet that it was not able to manifest
any constitutional effect, or afford immunity from the invasions of the
smallpox.
On May 14, 1796, Jenner inserted lymph taken from the hand of Sarah
Nelmes who was infected with cowpox, into the arm of James Phipps, a
healthy boy about eight years of age. This is the first instance of
regular inoculation of the vaccine disease by Jenner. The boy went
through the disorder, and on July 1st following he had the matter of
smallpox introduced into his arm, but no effect followed. Jenner had not
before seen the cowpox but as presented on the hands of the milkers, nor
had it been transmitted from one human being to another. He was struck
with its great resemblance to the smallpox pustule. The success of this
case must necessarily have operated powerfully upon him, and have urged
him to continue the research with increased energy.
His anticipations thus realized, his intentions accomplished, what must
have been the feelings of such a man as Jenner? They were suited to the
magnitude of the occasion, and mark the character of the philosopher,
distinguished as it ever was by great simplicity, benevolence, and
humility. "While," says he, "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 favorite 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." Lord Bacon said that "it is Heaven upon earth to have a
man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles
of truth." Jenner was a striking illustration of the truth of that
remark.
The modesty of Jenner was evidenced in his original intention of
submitting his observations on the cowpox in a paper addressed to the
Royal Society. Doctor Baron tells us that "when the subject was laid
before the president (the late Sir Joseph Banks), Jenner was given to
understand that he should be cautious and prudent; that he had already
gained some credit by his communications to the Royal Society and ought
not to risk his reputation by presenting to the learned body anything
which appeared so much at variance with established knowledge, and
withal so incredible." It came forth most unostentatiously, about the
end of June, 1798, dedicated to his friend Doctor Parry of Bath. Doctor
Jenner visited London in the month of April of that year, and remained
until July 14th. His object in this visit was to demonstrate the disease
to his professional friends, but such was the distrust, or apathy, felt
on the occasion, that Jenner returned to the country, without having
been able to prevail on a single individual to submit to the inoculation
of the virus.
The virus Jenner brought to London was consigned to the care of the late
Mr. Cline, of St. Thomas's Hospital. This celebrated surgeon inserted
some of it, by two punctures, into the hip of a young patient with a
disease of that part of the body. This calescent mode of proceeding was
adopted with the idea of exciting a counter-irritation in the diseased
part. The intention was to convert the vesicles into an issue, after the
progress of the cowpox had been observed. This idea was, however,
abandoned. Smallpox matter was afterward inserted into this child in
three places. It produced a slight inflammation on the third day, and
then subsided. The child was effectually protected against the disease.
Mr. Cline now became very sanguine as to the result and inoculated three
other children with lymph taken from the vesicles of the child, but no
evil effect ensued. The subject began to excite the attention of the
profession, and all were eager to put the matter to the test of
experiment. Mr. Cline urged Doctor Jenner to settle in London. He
promised him ten thousand pounds a year as the result of his practice.
What was his reply?