CHAPTER XVI.
JENNER RELIEVED—1807.
Whilst the Royal College of Physicians were preparing their report, there was perturbation in the political world. Dull and bigoted George III. refusing on the pretext of his oath to concede to Roman Catholics the rights of citizens, a change of administration ensued, and Mr. Perceval, a man after the King’s own heart, replaced Lord Henry Petty as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and proceeded to give effect to the plan for relieving Jenner; a purpose for which the report “On the State of Vaccine Inoculation in the United Kingdom” was merely a blind.
On the 29th July, 1807, the House of Commons being in Committee of Supply, Mr. Perceval moved that Dr. Jenner be awarded a second sum of £10,000 for his matchless discovery. Smallpox was one of the greatest afflictions of mankind, from which hardly any one escaped. For this dreadful malady, Jenner had invented a preventive, unknown before, or if known, which had never been published. He did not therefore think the Committee would consider his proposal extravagant; indeed it was rather an act of justice than of liberality. Those who had read the Report of the Physicians would recognise the immense advantages of the new practice. As for its inconveniences, they were as nothing to those which attended Variolous Inoculation, and the few mistakes recorded were due to ignorance and carelessness. It might be objected by those who adhered to Mr. Malthus, that nothing was gained by saving lives from pestilence; for deaths were not losses where means of subsistence were inadequate; but for his part he would disregard the argument even if it were true. It was much better to follow the dictates of their hearts, and preserve life whenever it was within their power. He had often heard that the true riches of a state were its inhabitants. But he would not attempt to measure Jenner’s award by the number of lives that his invention would preserve to the world. If he did so, what sum would they have to offer! All he need say was, that the £10,000 proposed represented no more than a moderate acknowledgment of labour and genius devoted to the service of humanity.
Mr. Shaw Lefevre opposed the motion. He had thought the former application for £20,000 excessive, and had concurred with those who reduced it to £10,000. He had moreover acquiesced in the smaller sum by reason of his faith in the report of the Committee of the House on the New Inoculation, but he now discovered that many of the statements in that report were erroneous. It attested that Vaccination was an infallible preventive of smallpox, whilst the report of the Surgeons now admits 56 failures! The first report stated that no disease followed Vaccination, whilst now it is confessed that scrofula and other alarming symptoms are its occasional sequences! The report thus prejudicial to Vaccination nevertheless argues in its favour, and he would like to call witnesses to the bar of the House who would make manifest still further its inconsistencies and inaccuracies. At this late period of the session, it was not right to vote away such an amount of public money. [Such “late periods” are, however, always selected for jobs.] Besides, it was generally known that Benjamin Jesty of Worth in Dorsetshire discovered the use of cowpox long before Jenner, and if the House was resolved to be liberal, the reward should be shared with Jesty, or with Jesty’s family. He should oppose the vote, but he did not say that he would always do so. His purpose was to gain time for more careful inquiry.
Lord Henry Petty, who had first moved in the matter, came to his successor’s support. He had no doubt as to the efficacy of Vaccination, nor as to Jenner being its discoverer. His difficulty was to find a rule for the justice of the case; for whoever considered the value of the discovery must perceive that it would be impossible for them to deal generously with the discoverer. His service to mankind was entirely beyond any financial estimate. It was objected that Vaccination was not infallible. He replied that absolute, never-failing perfection ought not to be expected from any human device: they should rest well satisfied in the approximation to infallibility that belonged to Vaccination. Its daily benefits were numberless. Multitudes of seamen, soldiers, and citizens of every description had been saved by it, and in contemplating its future effects on the human race, the mind was lost in amazement and gratitude. How then should they presume to talk of liberality towards Jenner, the benefactor! They should recollect how he stands in the estimation of the world, how they were acting in view of all nations, and how their own characters were at stake in their demeanour towards him. As to Malthus there was a misapprehension. He had taught nothing that forbade the extinction of an infectious disease which so greatly reduced human happiness. In their concern for Vaccination, the House should not forget the mischief that was still wrought by inoculation with smallpox. Zealous as he was for the new practice, he had no wish to meddle with what others might imagine (however absurdly) tended to their own preservation and that of their families, but no one had a right to endanger the lives of others. It was proved beyond dispute that those who were inoculated with smallpox diffused the fatal contagion by going abroad, or being carried abroad. He thought, therefore, it was not only the right, but the duty of the State to oblige those who were infected with smallpox to keep within doors until complete recovery. He would not move an amendment to the resolution, but would have no hesitation in acceding to a larger sum.
General Tarleton could not withhold his tribute of praise from the author of this blessing to mankind. To his knowledge, it had saved the lives of many in his Majesty’s service. Soldiers could march and perform every military duty when under the process of vaccination. It had been said that gentlemen in the army had no respect for anything save success in war, but he thought that many officers knew how to admire Jenner, the preserver of millions, and to allow that in future ages his glory would exceed the renown of the greatest warriors.
Mr. Sturges Bourne denounced the practice of inoculating out-patients at the Smallpox Hospital whereby the disease was systematically perpetuated and diffused throughout the community. He thought the legislature would be as much justified in taking measures to prevent this evil by restraint, as a man would be in snatching a firebrand out of the hands of a maniac just as he was going to set fire to a city.
Mr. Hawkins Browne confessed with shame that he had voted for £10,000 instead of £20,000 in 1802; but at that time he little knew the extent of Jenner’s service to the human race.
Mr. Edward Morris did not think that even what had been said sufficiently set forth their debt of gratitude to Jenner. His discovery afforded a reasonable expectation of the extermination of smallpox, and the merit of the transcendent discovery was all his own. Inoculation in the old mode mitigated the disease in a few, and spread it in full fury over many. It was therefore a curse to mankind instead of a blessing. The Smallpox Hospital in its practice of inoculation, was a source of pestilence and a multiplier of victims to this deplorable distemper. The pre-eminent distinction of Vaccination was that it preserved its subject and injured no one. This unspeakable blessing they owed to Jenner, nor had the least improvement been effected upon his original and carefully matured prescription. They were bound to consider how he had abandoned the lucrative pursuit of his profession, and surrendered many years of his life for the good of his country and mankind. He would therefore submit an amendment to the resolution before the Committee, that the grant be £20,000 instead of £10,000, to mark their sense of Jenner’s merits and to place him in a state of independence.
The amendment was warmly supported by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Windham, Sir John Sebright, and Mr. Herbert.
Mr. Perceval, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, stood to his resolution, but with indifferent arguments. It was without precedent that a vote recommended by Government should be thus increased. He admitted that Jenner was entitled to much more than they could afford, but it was also without precedent that so great a sum as £30,000 (inclusive of the former vote) should be bestowed on any discoverer.
Mr. William Smith would not submit to these objections. He recited the triumphs of Vaccination in Asia and America, and said it was true as of old that a prophet had no honour in his own country. [An observation singularly inapplicable to Jenner.] He urged the Committee to vote for the larger sum, and said that whilst the Chancellor of the Exchequer might in his public capacity protest, yet in his secret heart he would not be displeased if overborne by the sentiment of the House, of the country, and of the world.
Mr. Whitbread begged the Committee to bear in mind that Jenner had scorned to monopolise Vaccination, and had thereby sacrificed a great fortune. He called on the House to vote for the larger sum. Vaccination furnished the means for lessening the poor rate. Reduced smallpox signified fewer deaths, fewer orphans, fewer widows. Vaccination meant better health for the poor and more money in the pockets of the rich. They would excuse this appeal of his to the cupidity of the landed interest inasmuch as he had been anticipated in the exhibition of loftier considerations. He also wished to relieve the House from a renewal of this question. Let them reward Jenner once for all, and liberally: and remember that what was called economy in this connection, if practised by the House, would be, in the eye of the world, their disgrace.
Others spoke in a similar strain, and when the House divided, 60 voted for Mr. Morris’s amendment, and 47 against it, £20,000 being carried by a majority of 13. Including the £10,000 voted in 1802, Jenner was thus awarded £30,000 of public money, in times, too, of war and scarcity.
The debate, it will be observed, was conducted in a House of 107 members at a late period of the session, and the variations among the speakers consisted in degrees of extravagance and credulity. The fabulous matter as to Jenner personally affords curious evidence of the manner in which legends originate in the presence of contemporaries, and how they come to be repeated with the fervour of good faith by men whose competence and honesty might be taken for unimpeachable. Jenner’s party had whipped up their adherents, and the issue was sedulously arranged for; but because they had their way it need not be assumed that it was necessary to circumvent any active adversaries. Apathy was their chief difficulty. There was little to be got out of cowpox by the ordinary politician; and then, as now, the average M.P. rarely committed himself to any project that did not obviously make for his popularity. As for the enthusiasm for Vaccination displayed by the speakers in the House, we have to recollect that they were not converts to the practice per se. No really new discovery was ever received with such an instant chorus of approbation by the mob, educated or uneducated. They were one and all bred under the severe and dangerous practice of Variolous Inoculation, whereof Vaccination was no more than a modification with a seductive promise of equal or greater security from smallpox, and exemption from its perils and annoyances. Unless this prepossession be allowed for, the conduct of Parliament toward Jenner cannot be rightly understood. There was not a word uttered against Vaccination from the ground which physiologists at this day occupy, for that ground, in a scientific sense, was as yet unknown. Smallpox was a mysterious visitation to be mysteriously dealt with—dodged, if possible, by medical artifice; and not, as we are persuaded, a crisis of impurity in the blood induced by foul conditions of life, which cannot be better disposed of than in the course of nature by eruptive fever. If we could suppress smallpox (in any other way than by the removal of its causes) we should merely alter its manifestation and have to accept it in some other and aggravated form of disease.