_EDWARD JENNER AND VACCINATION._
Modern preventive medicine may be said to date from the introduction
of inoculation for smallpox in the early part of the eighteenth
century. It is much more profitable to dwell on the history of the
second step in this direction, a far greater one, due to the genius
of one man, Edward Jenner, whose Life by Dr. Baron, though not a
biographical masterpiece, is the source of much valuable information.
The name of Stephen Jenner had been handed down from generation to
generation in Gloucestershire, and the Rev. Stephen Jenner, father
of Edward, was vicar of Berkeley when his famous son was born,
on May 17, 1749. The father, however, died in 1754, and an elder
son, another Stephen Jenner, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford,
is credited with some attention to his education. But his school
life was not prolonged, for about the thirteenth year of his age
he commenced preparation for a medical career by entering upon
apprenticeship to Mr. Daniel Ludlow, a medical practitioner at
Sodbury near Bristol, with whom he remained six years.
Young Edward, when a fine ruddy boy of eight, was, with many others,
put under a preparatory process for inoculation for smallpox. This
was indeed a formidable proceeding, lasting six weeks. He was first
bled, to ascertain whether his blood was “fine;” was then purged
repeatedly till the ruddy youth became emaciated and feeble; and all
the while was kept on a low diet, and dosed with some drink which
was supposed to sweeten the blood. This is appropriately termed a
“barbarism of human veterinary practice,” but it was followed by
exposure to contagion from others in a state of severe disease. By
good luck the boy got off with a mild attack; but we may well ascribe
to the lowering preparatory treatment he had undergone, that he
never could as a child enjoy sleep, and was constantly haunted by
imaginary noises. All his life long he was too acutely alive to these
impressions and to any sudden jar.
It is perhaps more interesting, it is certainly more important,
to notice the influence exerted upon one mind by another, than to
examine the influences of any material objects upon human nature.
In this light we may view with pleasure the relations which existed
between Jenner, his elder brother already mentioned, and the great
anatomist, John Hunter. The ties of affection and esteem must have
been strong which drew the young doctor from the attractions of
London, from constant association with his admired friend in his
studies, from opportunities to inquire such as those afforded
by the arrangement of Sir Joseph Banks’s collection made during
Captain Cook’s celebrated voyage, from prospects of gain and worldly
advancement, to the retirement of a country village, the isolation
and the simplicity of rural existence. We can hardly overestimate
the benefits derived by the developing mind of the young doctor
from his daily intercourse for two years with such a preceptor as
John Hunter. The impression was mutual, for we find Hunter years
afterwards writing to Jenner, “I do not know any one I would sooner
write to than you: I do not know anybody I am so much obliged to.”
A correspondence full of interest on subjects of natural history
was kept up between them. Hunter’s appreciation of his friend’s
attainments was shown markedly when he formed the plan of a school of
natural history and human and comparative anatomy, and asked Jenner
to come and be his partner in the undertaking. Very many particulars
of experiments and inquiries in natural history by Jenner were
communicated to Hunter, and were of essential service to him. His
most important published paper in natural history was that on the
Cuckoo, published in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1788.
Jenner’s name has been so exclusively connected in the popular mind
with the subject of vaccination, that his ability as a practitioner
and his originality in many departments of medicine and surgery have
been somewhat lost sight of. No doubt this was much aided by his own
modesty; but in the treatment of many diseases his views, founded on
the improved anatomy and physiology he had learned from Hunter and
his own acute observation, were far in advance of his time.
It was perhaps, however, by his sympathetic qualities of heart that
Jenner most of all obtained and maintained the influence which he
possessed. He could truly rejoice with those that rejoiced, and weep
with those that wept. In him uncommon delicacy of feeling co-existed
with a joyous and lively disposition; and his gentlemanly manners
made him welcome everywhere. He was ever observant of natural
phenomena, and loved nothing better than to persuade some friend to
ride with him during his long journeys through the countryside. Those
who enjoyed the pleasure have described the vivid and imaginative
fervour which characterised his conversation, whether in reference
to his own feelings or the beauties of the scenery around, and
the captivating simplicity and ingenuity with which he explained
phenomena of animal and vegetable life which came under notice. In
fact he never met any one without endeavouring to gain or to impart
instruction.
Among the many proofs of Jenner’s sagacity and acuteness in matters
outside medicine should be mentioned the following, recorded by Sir
Humphry Davy, showing that Jenner anticipated the late Charles Darwin
in his views of the important effects produced by earthworms upon
the soil. “He said the earthworms, particularly about the time of
the vernal equinox, were much under and along the surface of our
moist meadow-lands; and wherever they move, they leave a train of
mucus behind them, which becomes manure to the plant. In this respect
they act, as the slug does, in furnishing materials for food to the
vegetable kingdom; and under the surface, they break the stiff clods
in pieces and finally divide the soil.”
His appearance and manner in this early portion of his life are thus
described by his intimate friend, Edward Gardner: “His height was
rather under the middle size, his person was robust, but active and
well formed. In his dress he was peculiarly neat, and everything
about him showed the man intent and serious, and well prepared to
meet the duties of his calling. When I first saw him it was on
Frampton Green. I was somewhat his junior in years, and had heard
so much of Mr. Jenner of Berkeley that I had no small curiosity
to see him. He was dressed in a blue coat and yellow buttons,
buckskins, well-polished jockey-boots, with handsome silver spurs,
and he carried a smart whip with a silver handle. His hair, after
the fashion of the times, was done up in a club, and he wore a
broad-brimmed hat. We were introduced on that occasion, and I was
delighted and astonished. I was prepared to find an accomplished
man, and all the country spoke of him as a skilful surgeon and a
great naturalist; but I did not expect to find him so much at home
on other matters. I who had been spending my time in cultivating my
judgment by abstract study, and smit from my boyhood with the love of
song, had sought my amusement in the rosy fields of imagination, was
not less surprised than gratified to find that the ancient affinity
between Apollo and Esculapius was so well maintained in his person.”
So informing and yet witty, so full of life, so true to life was his
conversation that the chance of sharing it was eagerly embraced,
and his friends rode many miles to accompany him on his way home
from their houses, even at midnight. His poetical fancy occasionally
vented itself in little pieces of verse, one of which, entitled
“Signs of Rain,” beginning—
“The hollow winds begin to blow,”
will probably long prove of interest in children’s collections of
verse.
Some of his epigrams are very apt, as this on the death of a miser—
“Tom at last has laid by his old niggardly forms,
And now gives good dinners; to whom, pray? the worms.”
Singing and violin and flute playing were favourite amusements of
his; and in his later years he would lay aside all cares for a time
and sing one of his own ballads with all the mirth and gaiety of his
youthful days.
Science and social intercourse were combined in two societies of
which Jenner was the soul—one he called the Medico-convivial,
which met usually at Radborough, the other the Convivio-medical,
assembling at Alveston.
At the meetings of these societies Jenner would often bring forward
the reported prophylactic virtues of cowpox, and earnestly recommend
his medical friends to inquire into the matter. All his efforts,
however, failed to induce them to take it up; and the subject became
so distasteful to them that they at one time threatened to expel him
if he continued to harass them with so unprofitable a subject.
Dr. Jenner did not marry till March 6, 1788, when Miss Catherine
Kingscote, a lady belonging to a well-known Gloucestershire family
frequently furnishing representatives to Parliament, became his wife.
The union was very happy, but Mrs. Jenner’s delicate health for many
years caused great anxiety and needed constant attention.
In 1792 Jenner became M.D. of St. Andrews, with the view of giving
up much of his fatiguing general practice. In 1794, at the age of
forty-five, he suffered from a severe attack of typhus fever, which
threatened to prove fatal. At this time the experiments in proof of
vaccination had not been made, and if he had died, the world in all
probability might have waited long for the introduction of this great
novelty.
Many who learn that vaccination was made known to the world in 1798,
when Jenner was forty-nine years old, do not know that the subject
attracted his attention in his youthful days as a country surgeon’s
apprentice, and that his faculties were ever after engaged upon the
matter at every convenient opportunity. He repeatedly mentioned the
subject of cowpox to his great teacher, John Hunter, when studying
with him in London. Hunter never damped the ardour of a pupil by
suggesting doubts or difficulties; but it does not appear that he
was specially impressed by what he heard. Yet he made known Jenner’s
information and opinions both in his lectures and to his friends.
But for many years Jenner’s ideas were poohpoohed by medical and
other authorities whom he met in his country practice. They believed
many had had smallpox after cowpox, and that the supposed protective
influence of the latter was due to something in the constitution of
the individual.
Not till 1780 did Jenner fully disclose to his devoted friend Edward
Gardner his hopes and fears about what he felt to be his great
life-work. He then described to him the various diseases which
attacked milkers when they handled diseased cows, and especially that
form which afforded protection against smallpox; and with deep and
anxious emotion expressed his hopes of being able to propagate this
latter form from one human being to another, so as to bring about the
total extinction of smallpox.
The exceeding simplicity of the ultimate discovery makes it difficult
for us nowadays to imagine the circumstances under which Jenner had
to grope his way in the imperfect twilight, and the perplexities
by which he was beset in arriving at true conclusions. Both his
own observation and that of other medical men of his acquaintance
proved to him that what was commonly called cowpox was not a certain
preventive of smallpox. But he ascertained by assiduous inquiry
and personal investigation that cows were liable to various kinds
of eruptions on their teats, all capable of being communicated to
the hands of the milkers; and that such sores when so communicated
were all called cowpox. But when he had traced out the nature of
these various diseases, and ascertained which of them possessed the
protective virtue against smallpox, he was again foiled by learning
that in some cases when what he now called the true cowpox broke out
among the cattle on a dairy farm, and had been communicated to the
milkers, they subsequently had smallpox.
It was this repeated failure to arrive at a perfect result which
perhaps gave the stimulus that led Jenner to ultimate triumph. The
fact that he was on the scent of a discovery which in some form had
a promise of indefinite blessing, made him redouble his efforts
when most perplexed. He conceived the idea that the virus of the
cowpox itself might undergo changes sufficient to deprive it of its
protective power, and yet enable it to communicate a disease to the
milker. Thus he at last came on the track of the discovery that it
was only in a certain condition of the pustule that the virus was
capable of imparting its protective power to the human constitution.
Having thus steered his way safely through all the pitfalls which
might have destroyed the accuracy of his results, Jenner was able to
go on to the next stage, that of putting his theory to the test. It
is singular how long he was before he had an opportunity of further
experiment. In 1788 he showed a drawing of the cowpox as it occurred
in milkers to Sir Everard Home and others in London. Various eminent
medical men, Cline, Adams, Haygarth, heard of and discussed the
matter, and encouraged Jenner’s inquiries. But it was not till May
14, 1796, that he had an opportunity of transferring cowpox from
one human being to another. Sarah Nelmes, a dairymaid who had been
infected from her master’s cows, afforded the matter, and it was
inserted by two surperficial incisions into the arms of James Phipps,
a healthy boy about eight years old. The cowpox ran an ordinary
course with no ill effect, and in July Jenner writes to Gardner: “The
boy has since been inoculated for the smallpox, which, as I ventured
to predict, produced no effect. I shall now pursue my experiments
with redoubled ardour.”
Jenner did not, even now that he had attained to certainty in his
own mind, rush precipitately into publicity, although his benevolent
desires to avert the scourge of smallpox from humanity strongly urged
him to do so. Still less did he yield to the temptation to establish
himself as a practitioner with a specialty for warding off smallpox,
which might have led him speedily to fortune. He was as if forearmed
against the stringent requirements which would be made as to the
proofs of such a discovery if made gratuitously public. At this time
he says: “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.”
Until the spring of 1798 Jenner had no further opportunity of
pursuing his inquiries, for the cowpox disappeared from the
neighbouring dairies. At last he had matured his research, and it
was ready for publication. Before sending it to the printers it was
most carefully scrutinised by a number of friends at Rudhall, near
Ross, in Herefordshire, the seat of Mr. Thomas Westfaling. Their
sympathy encouraged him and their judgment approved of his work,
which none who read Jenner’s modest and now classic recital, “An
Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ,” bearing
date June 21, 1798, can wonder at. Previous to this date, however,
Dr. and Mrs. Jenner had been two months in London, experiencing
much mortification from the fact that no one in London could be
obtained as a patient to be inoculated with cowpox. Dr. Jenner often
stated that his patience had been exhausted on that occasion: and it
remained for Henry Cline to perform the first successful vaccination
in London. Finding that subsequent inoculation with smallpox failed
to give his patient any disease, Cline expressed his opinion that
this promised to be one of the greatest improvements ever made in
medicine; and he begged Jenner to remove to London, promising him a
practice of ten thousand a year. Jenner’s sentiments on this matter
are characteristically expressed in the following extract: “Shall I,
who even in the morning of my days sought the lowly and sequestered
paths of life—the valley, and not the mountain; shall I, now my
evening is fast approaching, hold myself up as an object for fortune
and for fame? Admitting it as a certainty that I obtain both, what
stock should I add to my little fund of happiness? My fortune, with
what flows in from my profession, is sufficient to gratify my wishes;
indeed, so limited is my ambition and that of my nearest connexions,
that were I precluded from future practice I should be enabled to
obtain all I want. And as for fame, what is it? a gilded butt, for
ever pierced with the arrows of malignancy.”
The first lady of rank who had her child vaccinated was Lady Frances
Morton (afterwards Lady Ducie). The Countess of Berkeley very early
promoted Jenner’s success and ardently advocated vaccination.
A certain Dr. Woodville, eager to rank among the vaccinators,
discovered cowpox in a dairy in Gray’s Inn Lane, in January 1799,
found that the milkers became infected, and took from them matter
with which he vaccinated a number of persons; but contrary to
Jenner’s practice, he proceeded to insert smallpox matter in their
arms on the third and fifth days after vaccination, as if that could
afford a fair trial of the new method. No wonder that the patients
exhibited pustules like those of smallpox, and this was the first of
the many disasters that arose from the injudicious zeal of Jenner’s
first followers. This same Dr. Woodville, in an interview with Jenner
in March of the same year, showed himself so little acquainted
with the real character of cowpox, that he described it as having
been communicated by effluvia; and that the patient had it in the
confluent way. Jenner remarked on this: “Might not the disease have
been the confluent smallpox communicated by Dr. Woodville, as he is
always full of the infection?”
Notwithstanding the mistakes of injudicious friends vaccination
began to spread in 1799, largely through the aid of those friends of
Jenner who themselves became inoculators—including many who were not
medical practitioners. In the same year it came into notice on the
continent, the “Inquiry” having become known in Vienna, Hanover, and
Geneva. In particular Dr. de Carro in Vienna became its most zealous
and judicious advocate, and greatly contributed to the striking
diminution in the ravages of smallpox which soon became evident in
that city through the introduction and wide spread of vaccination. A
little later, vaccine matter was first sent to Berlin. The same year
vaccination became known in the United States, Professor Waterhouse
of Cambridge, Mass., being the first to appreciate its importance. He
as soon as possible vaccinated his own children, and then had one of
them publicly inoculated with smallpox; and no infection following,
the practice became at once established in the United States. Some
contamination with smallpox having taken place by injudicious
action as in England, matter was obtained direct from Jenner, and
President Jefferson, with his sons-in-law, in 1801, set the example
of vaccinating in their own families and those of their neighbours,
nearly 200 persons. France and Spain had also followed in the wake,
and almost all Europe was now being vaccinated.
We cannot follow the details of the successful introduction of
vaccination as by a triumphal progress all over the world, proving
its efficacy on men of all colour, of all civilisations, of all
climates. Sir Ralph Abercrombie’s expedition to Egypt was the first
armed force submitted to vaccination, and its good effects were
most evident. At Palermo it was not unusual to see on the mornings
of public inoculation at the hospital a procession of men, women,
and children, conducted through the streets by a priest carrying
a cross, on the way to be inoculated. The medical officers of the
British navy in 1801 presented Dr. Jenner with a gold medal in honour
of his discovery.
Smallpox was still committing great ravages in India and Ceylon, and
Jenner exerted himself to the utmost to transmit vaccine matter to
the East. The early attempts all failed, some from accident, such
as the loss of an East Indiaman at sea, others from inexperience in
sending the virus so great a distance, exposed to such vicissitudes
of climate. Dr. Jenner proposed to the Secretary of State to send in
some ship to India a number of soldiers who had not had smallpox, and
to vaccinate them in succession by appointing a skilled surgeon to
accompany the vessel; but those in office could not see the wisdom of
this plan. Consequently the noble discoverer resolved himself to do
what was so needful, and while seeking to defray part of the cost by
a public subscription, he headed it with a subscription of a thousand
guineas. But before the project could be matured, news arrived of the
successful introduction of vaccine matter into Bombay, in consequence
of its successive transfer to Constantinople, to Bagdad, to Bussora,
and thence by sea to Bombay. The self-denying enthusiasm of Dr.
Jenner is, however, as conspicuous as if his expedition had been
fitted out as he intended.
The simple narrative which the great man himself gave in 1801 in a
pamphlet only extending to eight pages, deserves reproducing in
every account of the discovery. Its simplicity is more forceful than
any decorative treatment could have rendered it. “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 that it had been known among
the dairies 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 families declared
they had no such idea in their early days.”
* * * * *
“During the investigation of the casual cowpox, I was struck with
the idea that it might be practicable to propagate the disease by
inoculation, after the manner of the smallpox, first from the cow,
and finally from one human being to another. I anxiously waited
some time for an opportunity of putting this theory to the test. At
length the period arrived, and the first experiment was made upon
a lad of the name of Phipps, in whose arm a little vaccine virus
was inserted, taken from the hand of a young woman who had been
accidentally infected by a cow. Notwithstanding the resemblance
which the pustule, thus excited on the boy’s arm, bore to variolous
inoculation, yet as the indisposition attending it was barely
perceptible, I could scarcely persuade myself the patient was secure
from the smallpox. However, on his being inoculated some months
afterwards, it proved that he was secure. This case inspired me with
confidence; and as soon as I could again furnish myself with virus
from the cow, I made an arrangement for a series of inoculations.
A number of children were inoculated in succession, one from the
other; and after several months had elapsed, they were exposed to
the infection of smallpox—some by inoculation, others by variolous
effluvia, and some in both ways, but they all resisted it. The result
of these trials gradually led me into a wider field of experiment,
which I went over not only with great attention, but with painful
solicitude.”
The great revolution effected by vaccination can scarcely be
appreciated in our days, and some testimonies from the past are
continually needed. The Rev. Dr. Booker, of Dudley, which in his time
contained fourteen thousand inhabitants, testified thus respecting
vaccination and its striking effects: “I have, previous to the
knowledge of the vaccine inoculation, frequently buried, day after
day, several (and once as many as eight) victims of the smallpox.
But since the parish has been blessed with this invaluable boon of
Divine Providence (cowpock), introduced among us nearly four years
ago, only two victims have fallen a prey to the above ravaging
disorder (smallpox). In the surrounding villages, like an insatiable
Moloch, it has lately been devouring vast numbers, where obstinacy
and prejudice have precluded the Jennerian protective blessing, and
not a few of the infected victims have been brought for interment in
our cemeteries; yet, though thousands have thus fallen beside us, the
fatal pestilence has not hitherto again come nigh our dwelling. The
spirit of Jenner hath stood between the dead and the living, and the
plague has been stayed.”
Many ladies took up the practice of vaccination with zeal and skill.
Thus, up to November 1805, Miss Bayley, of Hope, near Manchester,
had vaccinated two thousand six hundred persons, and a female friend
of hers had vaccinated two thousand. Miss Bayley is related to
have carried on her extensive vaccinations with great judgment and
precision. She commenced by offering five shillings to any one who
could produce an instance of the occurrence of smallpox in any person
vaccinated by her. Out of the whole number of cases above mentioned,
however, only one claim was made; and on referring to her books, it
was found that a mark had been made against the name, indicating a
suspicion that the vaccination had not been effective.
Dr. Jenner has often been reproached for encouraging unprofessional
persons to practise vaccination: but it should be noted that he never
did so unless the person concerned had carefully studied the subject,
and could be relied on to follow his directions implicitly. In
fact, some of the non-professional vaccinators were more efficient
than many professional ones, for these frequently disdained to be
instructed by him, and by no means followed the rules he laid down.
Thus discredit came to vaccination to a great extent by the mistakes
of its professional advocates.
The most extraordinary attacks were made upon vaccination and its
promoters, including, of course, most virulent denunciations of
its supposed anti-religious tendencies. Opposing doctors detected
resemblances to ox-faces, produced in children, as they alleged, by
vaccination. A lady complained that since her daughter was vaccinated
she coughed like a cow, and had grown hairy all over her body; and
in one country district it was stated that vaccination had been
discontinued there, because those who had been inoculated in that
manner bellowed like bulls.
One mode in which some doctors suffered at the time of the
introduction of smallpox is not often remembered. Inoculation with
smallpox was largely practised, and some medical men derived a
considerable proportion of their income from this branch of their
profession. It was stated on good authority that Dr. Woodville,
at one time Physician to the Smallpox Hospital, having given up
inoculation and largely practised vaccination, his income sank in
one year from £1000 to £100; and others who refused to discontinue
inoculation and advocate vaccination were more than suspected of
interested motives.
The antagonism of vaccination to the so-called designs of Providence
was loudly asserted. One Dr. Squirrel on this head maintained that
“Providence never intended that the vaccine disease should affect
the human race, else why had it not, before this time, visited the
inhabitants of the globe? Notwithstanding this, the vaccine virus
has been forced into the blood by the manufacturing hand of man, and
supported not by science or reason, but by conjecture and folly only,
with a pretence of its exterminating the smallpox from the face of
the earth.” Again, he denounces “the puerility and the impropriety
of such a conduct, viz., of introducing vaccination with a boasted
intention not only to supplant, but also to change and alter, and,
in short, to prevent the established law of nature. The law of God
prohibits the practice; the law of man, and the law of nature, loudly
exclaim against it.” Inoculation had been just as bitterly denounced
as “dangerous,” “sinful,” “diabolical,” in numerous sermons and
medical treatises, when it was introduced, less than a century before
this.
No more striking evidence of the beneficial results which attended
vaccination, even in Jenner’s lifetime, could be given than those
which attended its introduction into Vienna, where smallpox had
prevailed severely for centuries. The average number of persons who
died at Vienna in each of the first five years of this century was
about 14,600: of these eight hundred and thirty-five died of smallpox
in the year 1800. Vaccination being introduced and extensively
adopted, the number of deaths from smallpox fell to one hundred and
sixty-four in 1801, to sixty-one in 1802, to twenty-seven in 1803,
while in 1804 only two persons died, and these deaths were not
occasioned in Vienna, one being that of a boatman’s child who caught
the disease on the Danube, and the other a child sent to Vienna
from a distant part of the empire already infected. Yet so long was
the practice of vaccination before it spread to an equal extent in
England, that nine hundred and fifty deaths occurred from smallpox in
London in the last three months only of 1805.
Wherever he might happen to be, Jenner offered to vaccinate
gratuitously all poor persons who applied to him at fixed times. The
people of one parish, in the neighbourhood of Cheltenham, held back,
while the adjacent parishes accepted the new practice to a large
extent. But in one particular year the people of the reluctant parish
arrived in large numbers to claim vaccination for their children.
On inquiry it appeared that smallpox had been among them, causing
many deaths, while those of their neighbours who had been vaccinated
escaped. Yet it was not this potent argument which had been most
influential, but the fact that the cost of coffins and burial
for those who had died of smallpox became alarming to the parish
officials, and they were moved to urge the people authoritatively to
be vaccinated, and so save the parish expenses.
From this time forward for a number of years Jenner paid annual
visits to London, remaining there a great part of the season,
incessantly occupied in vaccinating, in giving information and
instruction on the subject verbally to many medical men, in writing
to a vast number of persons who corresponded with him from all parts
of the world, for every one who heard of the discovery and wanted
to know more about it applied to the discoverer, and in social
intercourse with people of note, whom he never failed to impress
by his eloquence and perspicuity. We cannot follow here the many
incidents which marked these years, his intercourse with royal
personages, the addresses of congratulation and gratitude which he
received from all kinds of localities and bodies of people, the
foundation of the Royal Jennerian Society, and the like. A few,
however, must find a place.
A Dr. Pearson, to whom we shall have to refer again, distinguished
himself at first as an ardent vaccinator, but subsequently he seems
to have imagined himself entitled to much of the distinction which
belonged to Dr. Jenner, and in order to secure this, set about
forming a public “vaccine board,” in which the chief official status
was assigned to himself. He succeeded in obtaining the patronage of
the Duke of York and other notable persons. Addressing Jenner on
the subject, in December 1799, Pearson says: “It occurs to me that
it might not be disagreeable to you to be an extra-corresponding
physician.... No expense is to be attached to your situation except
a guinea a year as a subscriber, and indeed I think you ought to be
exempt from that, as you cannot send any patients.” This was pretty
well, one might think, to be addressed to Jenner: in one year after
the full publication of his discovery, he was to be shunted off as an
“extra-corresponding physician.” Jenner’s answer showed the sense in
which he regarded it. “It appears to me somewhat extraordinary that,
an institution formed upon so large a scale, and that has for its
object the inoculation of the cowpox, should have been set on foot
and almost completely organized without my receiving the most distant
intimation of it.... For the present I must beg leave to decline the
_honour_ intended me.” After some discussion, most of the royal and
influential personages who had promised to support Dr. Pearson’s
institution withdrew their names from it.
At Brunn in Moravia, where Count Francis de Salm introduced and
widely diffused vaccination, the people erected a temple dedicated to
Jenner, and annually held a festival on his birthday.
The Dowager Empress of Russia first promoted vaccination in that
empire, gave the name Vaccinoff to the first child vaccinated, had
the child taken to St. Petersburg in one of her own coaches, placed
in the Foundling Hospital, with a provision settled on her for life.
In 1802 the Empress sent Dr. Jenner a letter signed with her own
hand, with a valuable diamond ring. In fact in all foreign countries
vaccination was accepted with more enthusiasm than in England. The
proof of this may readily be seen in Dr. Baron’s Life of Jenner.
Meanwhile Jenner had expended a large amount of money out of his
fortune, in visiting London, distributing information, giving up
to a very large extent his practice at Berkeley, and being by no
means recouped by profits of practice in London. His friends at
length, seeing that he was now debarred from obtaining from practice
an adequate reward for his great discovery, urged him to apply to
Parliament for some reward. This was at last done in 1802, and the
petition was recommended very strongly by the king, and considered by
a committee of the House of Commons. This committee received evidence
which unanimously affirmed the importance and practical value of the
discovery, and almost as unanimously agreed in Jenner’s originality.
Admiral Berkeley, chairman of the committee, said that Jenner’s was
unquestionably the greatest discovery ever made for the preservation
of the human species. A grant of £10,000 was proposed on June 2,
1802, and after a considerable discussion was carried, as against an
amendment proposing to grant £20,000.
It soon appeared, however, that the House of Commons had failed to
satisfy the sense of justice of the mass of people as well as of
the more eminent members of the medical profession in its grant to
Jenner. Sir Gilbert Blane, in an address he drew up on the subject,
said: “It is the universal voice of this as well as other nations
that the remuneration given to Dr. Jenner is greatly inadequate to
his deserts, and to the magnitude of the benefit his discovery has
conferred on mankind.”
In January 1803 was founded the Royal Jennerian Institution,
under royal patronage, and with Jenner as president, to propagate
vaccination in London and elsewhere. This continued its operations
for some years with distinguished success; but Dr. Walker, who had
been appointed resident inoculator, soon began to deviate from
Jenner’s instructions, and to adopt methods calculated in Jenner’s
view to bring the practice into disrepute. Consequently the dismissal
of Walker was called for, but was negatived in one division, to which
Walker had brought in as voters twenty persons who only paid their
subscription on the day of voting. By such absurd possibilities
are the steps of benefactors to their race frequently beset. The
resignation of Dr. Walker took place soon afterwards, but the
Jennerian Institution did not fully recover from the effects of
the dissension, and on the establishment of the National Vaccine
Institution in 1808 it became practically extinct.
Will it be credited that, after the decisive parliamentary vote, for
more than two years the Treasury delayed to pay the money, on one
pretence and another; and when at last it was paid, nearly £1000 was
deducted on account of fees. Akin to this, though the amount was
trifling, was a demand made upon Jenner for five pounds admission
fees, when the corporation of Dublin conferred upon him the freedom
of that city.
Among the multitude of testimonies of appreciation which Jenner
received, not the least interesting is one which proceeded from the
chiefs of the “Five Nations” of Canadian Indians, the Mohawks, the
Onondagas, the Senecas, the Oneidas, and the Coyongas. Their address
to him ran as follows: “Brother! our Father has delivered to us the
book you sent to instruct us how to use the discovery which the Great
Spirit made to you, whereby the smallpox, that fatal enemy of our
tribes, may be driven from the earth. We have deposited your book in
the hands of the man of skill whom our Great Father employs to attend
us when sick or wounded. We shall not fail to teach our children to
speak the name of Jenner; and to thank the Great Spirit for bestowing
upon him so much wisdom and so much benevolence. We send with this
a belt and string of wampum, in token of our acceptance of your
precious gift; and we beseech the Great Spirit to take care of you in
this world, and in the land of spirits.”
In 1804 one of the most beautiful of the Napoleon series of medals
was struck in commemoration of the Emperor’s estimate of the value of
vaccination. He was so sensible of Jenner’s claims, that he allowed
his petitions for the liberation of British subjects to prevail.
Napoleon was about to reject one petition, but when Josephine uttered
the name of Jenner, he paused and exclaimed, “Jenner! ah, we can
refuse nothing to that man.” Perhaps no more striking example of the
extent to which Jenner’s influence extended outside England could be
given, than the fact that numbers of persons travelled abroad or on
shipboard bearing with them, in preference to a passport, a simple
certificate signed “Edward Jenner,” testifying that the persons were
known to him and were travelling in pursuit of health, or science, or
other affairs unconnected with war. When the great war was over, and
the allied sovereigns visited London, Jenner was introduced, among
others, to the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, by their
special request.
But in Great Britain there were many things calculated to detract
from Jenner’s perfect enjoyment. On various occasions the British
government were by no means eager to show him a respect and honour
equal to that paid to him abroad. When various government officials
combined to launch a national vaccine establishment, it was at first
stated that Jenner was to be director, with the stipulation that
no one was to take any part in the vaccinating department who was
not either nominated or approved by him. Yet soon afterwards, out
of eight persons nominated by Jenner, six were rejected. Jenner
himself was not admitted a member of the Board, which was composed
exclusively of the four censors of the College of Physicians and
the master, and two senior wardens of the College of Surgeons. In
consequence of this treatment, occurring in 1808, when vaccination
was so universally recognised, Dr. Jenner resigned the post of
director, but was succeeded by his friend, Mr. Moore, who was
thoroughly in his confidence.
A picture of Jenner’s inward life at this period, when the subject
of a second parliamentary grant was being considered, may here be
given from a letter of his:—“As for myself, I bear the fatigues and
worries of a public character better by far than those who know the
acuteness of my feelings could have anticipated. Happy should I be to
give up my laurels for the repose of retirement, did I not feel it to
be my duty to be in the world. I certainly derive the most soothing
consolation from my labours, the benefits of which are felt the world
over; but less appreciated, perhaps, in this island than in any other
part of the civilised world.... Cheltenham is much improved since
you saw it. It is too gay for me. I still like my rustic haunt, old
Berkeley, best; where we are all going in about a fortnight. Edward
is growing tall, and has long looked over my head. Catherine, now
eleven years old, is a promising girl; and Robert, eight years old,
is just a chip of the old block.”
In July 1806 Lord Henry Petty, who had succeeded Mr. Pitt as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried a motion in the Commons, that
the Royal College of Physicians should be requested to inquire into
the progress of vaccine inoculation. The College made an inquiry,
giving the fullest scope to the opponents of vaccination, and
finally reported that, considering the number, respectability,
disinterestedness, and extensive experience of its advocates,
compared with the feeble and imperfect testimonies of its few
opposers, the value of the practice seemed established as firmly as
possible. In July 1807 the subject was again debated in Parliament,
and a proposal to grant £10,000 was rejected in favour of one moved
by Mr. Edward Morris that £20,000 be granted to Dr. Jenner.
The European inhabitants of India were from the first among the most
earnest in recognising Jenner’s merits, and afforded him in many
ways practical testimonies of their gratitude. About £4000 were
transmitted to him from Calcutta in 1806 and following years; from
Bombay £2000, and from Madras nearly £1400.
The effects of incessant labours were beginning seriously to tell
on Jenner’s health, when in 1810 he lost his eldest son from
consumption, in his 21st year. This event preyed much on his mind,
and left him in a state occasioning great anxiety to his friends. In
the same year he lost his firm friend the Earl of Berkeley, and his
beloved sister, Mrs. Black. Under these troubles he felt the more
acutely the calumnious attacks to which he was constantly subjected.
Dr. Parry of Bath, writing to him about this time, says—“For
Heaven’s sake, think no more of these wasps, who hum and buzz about
you, and whom your indifference and silence will freeze into utter
oblivion. Let me again entreat you not to give them one moment’s
consideration, _opus exegisti ære perennius_. The great business is
accomplished, and the blessing is ready for those who choose to avail
themselves of it; and with regard to those who reject it, the evil
will be on their own heads.”
In 1811 occurred the first well-authenticated case of smallpox in
a boy vaccinated by Jenner, the Hon. Robert Grosvenor. The disease
became severe and threatened death, when all at once the later stages
were passed through rapidly, and a good recovery was made. Other
vaccinated children in this family were exposed to the contagion, and
did not suffer. There seemed every reason, as Jenner explained, to
ascribe the failure of protection in the first case to a peculiarity
of constitution which would probably have exposed the patient to
a second attack of smallpox. In fact, Dr. Jenner had vaccinated
the child when in weak health at a month old. Lady Grosvenor was
timid, and prevailed on him, contrary to his usual practice, to
make one puncture only; and the pustule that resulted was deranged
in its progress by being rubbed by the nurse. Nevertheless the
case created much alarm and excitement, and greatly exhilarated
the anti-vaccinists. Jenner’s simple answer was to admit the fact,
alleging that if ten, fifty, or a hundred such events should occur,
they would be balanced a hundred times over by cases of second
attacks of smallpox. “I have ever considered the variolous and the
vaccine radically and essentially the same. As the inoculation of the
former has been known to fail in instances so numerous, it would
be very extraordinary if the latter should always be exempt from
failure. It would tend to invalidate my early doctrine on this point.”
A letter of Jenner to Dr. Baron on this subject, exhibits perhaps the
utmost degree of irritation that he showed. “The Town is a fool—an
idiot,” he remarks, “and will continue in this red-hot, hissing-hot
state about this affair, till something else starts up to draw aside
its attention. I am determined to lock up my brains and think no more
_pro bono publico_.... It is my intention to collect all the cases I
can of smallpox, after supposed security from that disease.”
In 1813 the degree of M.D. was voted to Jenner by the University of
Oxford. It was expected that the London College of Physicians would
have followed suit by admitting him to membership, but they exacted a
full examination, which Jenner at his age, and with his reputation,
could not be expected to submit to. In the summer of 1814 Jenner
visited London for the last time, being presented to the Czar, and
having numerous interviews with his sister, the Grand Duchess of
Oldenburg. On the 13th September, 1815, Mrs. Jenner died, a calamity
which most deeply afflicted Dr. Jenner, and seemed to mark his
retirement from active public life. It is much to be regretted that
he did not live to complete and publish his own final account, and
matured convictions, as to the suitable conditions of vaccination,
and the modifications and imperfections to which it was liable. This
engaged much of his attention in his later years, but his inquiries
were interrupted by illness and by family affliction. His later
years were made painful by extreme nervous sensitiveness, and he had
several attacks which foreboded death by apoplexy, which ultimately
occurred on 26th January, 1823. He was buried at Berkeley, by the
side of his wife, on 3d February.
Jenner’s nature, says his biographer, was mild, unobtrusive,
unambitious; the singleness of his heart and his genuine modesty
graced and adorned his splendid reputation. Had those who opposed him
known how little of selfishness, vanity, or pride entered into his
composition! He made no answer to aspersions.
“All the friends who watched him longest, and have seen most of his
mind and of his conduct, with one voice declare that there was a
something about him which they never witnessed in any other man. The
first things that a stranger would remark were the gentleness, the
simplicity, the artlessness of his manner. There was a total absence
of all ostentation or display; so much so, that in the ordinary
intercourse of society he appeared as a person who had no claims to
notice. He was perfectly unreserved, and free from all guile. He
carried his heart and his mind so openly, so undisguisedly, that
all might read them. You could not converse with him, you could not
enter his house nor his study, without seeing what sort of man dwelt
there.”
“The objects of his studies generally lay scattered around him; and,
as he used often to say himself, seemingly in chaotic confusion.
Fossils, and other specimens of natural history, anatomical
preparations, books, papers, letters—all presented themselves in
strange disorder; but every article bore the impress of the genius
that presided there. The fossils were marked by small pieces of
paper pasted on them, having their names and the places where they
were found inscribed in his own plain and distinct hand-writing....
He seemed to have no secrets of any kind: and, notwithstanding a
long experience with the world, he acted to the last as if all
mankind were trustworthy, and free from selfishness as himself.
He had a working head, being never idle, and accumulated a great
store of original observations. These treasures he imparted most
generously and liberally. Indeed, his chief pleasure seemed to be in
pouring out the ample riches of his mind to every one who enjoyed
his acquaintance. He had often reason to lament this unbounded
confidence; but such ungrateful returns neither chilled his ardour
nor ruffled his temper.”
Such was the man to whom the world was indebted for vaccination; no
court or metropolitan physician, no university student, but a country
doctor, a man of science and of benevolence, whose name is undying.