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CHAPTER VIII.

TRIUMPH OF THE NEW INOCULATION.

The House of Hanover has been reproached for indifference to literature, science and art, but an exception might be asserted on the score of variolous and vaccine inoculation. It was Caroline, Princess of Wales, who in 1721 promoted Maitland’s experiments; and Jenner found none so ready to hear and believe as George III. and his family. His first convert was the Duke of Clarence, subsequently William IV. The Duke’s surgeon happened to be Francis Knight, who had lived in Wilts and Gloucestershire, and was familiar with the country faith in cowpox, and received Jenner’s communication with a ready mind. In 1799 Knight was allowed to operate upon the Duke’s children by Mrs. Jordan, and the fact was noised abroad and passed to Jenner’s credit. Nor was the Duke’s service limited to this example. He made Jenner’s acquaintance, listened to his stories, and became his active partizan. Then the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, was convinced, and enforced the new practice to the full extent of his power. He, moreover, acted as patron of the Vaccine Pock Institution until he was persuaded that Pearson, its founder, was injurious to Jenner. On 7th March, 1800, Jenner was presented to George III. at St. James’s Palace, and delivered The Inquiry bound in crimson to his majesty, who was pleased to accept the dedication of the second edition. On the 27th he had an interview with Queen Charlotte, who conversed about the new specific with all the curiosity of a grand-motherly quack. The Prince of Wales followed suit; and Jenner found himself invested with the full effulgence of the royal favour. It was a magical success; for, consider, not two years had elapsed since the publication of The Inquiry.

Jenner naturally became very popular. He wrote to Mr. Shrapnel—“I have not yet made half my calls in town, although I fag from eleven till four;” and, “Pray tell Tierney how rapidly the Cowpox is marching over the metropolis, and indeed through the whole island. The death of three children under inoculation with smallpox will probably give that practice the Brutus-stab.”

With little ability to make and maintain ground, Jenner, like many feeble folk, had the faculty of converting those he called his friends to his private advantage. He did not subdue them by will, but by weakness. Indeed, whoever chooses to observe will often have to mark with amaze how stronger natures suffer their means and energies to be appropriated by inferior organisms, and used with the thanklessness of rightful possession.

John Ring was a remarkable instance of this sort of possession. He was a surgeon in New Street, Hanover Square, London. In 1799 he entered into correspondence with Jenner, and his interest in cowpox and its advertiser developed into an enthusiasm without qualification by weariness or fear. Whatever Jenner asserted he swore to; whatever charge was brought against the New Inoculation he denied. He was ready for all comers with such voluble and hearty vigour that his outrages on propriety were laughed at and excused as “John Ring’s way.” Among his earlier services was the preparation of the Testimonial in favour of the New Inoculation which he carried from house to house and obtained the signature of nearly every London physician and surgeon of distinction. The Testimonial was published in the Medical Review and Medical Journal for July, 1800, and was reprinted in the newspapers. It ran as follows—

The first signatures comprised thirty-two physicians and forty surgeons, and the example being set, others hastened from town and country to record their adhesion. “I feel proud,” wrote Mr. Witham in sending his name, “that my little bark may, with others more illustrious,

The Testimonial had great effect on the public mind: to the majority it was irresistible. As Ring said, “It confounded the enemies of the new practice”—adding in his characteristic vernacular, “and it secured the triumph of reason over the scruples of prejudice and ignorance, and the base manœuvres of sordid and self-interested men.”[120] Thus early was it discovered that an opponent of Vaccination was an ignoramus or a rascal. Ring’s easy arrogance is concisely illustrated in this deliverance—

Jenner recognised his thorough-going supporter, and used his loyalty to strike at Pearson and others who failed to abide in like subservience. He wrote to a foreign physician—

Wonder is frequently expressed over the rapid conversion of England and the world to Vaccination, but, as I have before remarked, wonder is much reduced when we set the circumstances clearly before us. Inoculation with smallpox to avert smallpox was the practice of the time, and it was not a universal practice simply because it was troublesome and dangerous: everybody believed in the saving rite; and where evaded it was as onerous and perilous duties are always and everywhere evaded by the indolent and cowardly. Inoculation with cowpox was introduced to the public as a substitute for inoculation with smallpox, equally efficient or more efficient, and neither troublesome nor dangerous. Thus easy and seductive was the transition from the one practice to the other. Jenner had no serious battle to fight: the contest was decided in the years during which inoculation with smallpox struggled for prevalence. The warfare that subsequently cost him so much irritation was conducted by the conservatives of Inoculation, as experience revealed the inefficiency and mischiefs of Vaccination. Resistance such as is now offered to Vaccination on physiological grounds there was none, so far as I can discover. It had apparently occurred to no one that smallpox was a consequence of the transgression of the laws of health, and was preventible by submission to those laws. It was imagined that the disease came by the will of God, or the devil, or by force of fate, and that to dodge it by medical craft was the utmost that was practicable. Unless we bear in mind these conditions of the public intelligence, we shall misapprehend the demeanour of the people who so cordially welcomed Jenner’s advertisement. It is always a mistake to criticise the conduct of an earlier generation by the light of a later. We turn history to ill account when we use it to nourish our self-complacency; for the probability is that had we lived with our forefathers, we should have done exactly as they did.

Some will ask, How did it ever come to pass that so many doctors in 1800 signed Ring’s testimonial certifying that inoculation with cowpox was a sure and everlasting protection from smallpox when they had not, and could not have, any experience to warrant their assertion? True, but they had an illusory experience by which they were beguiled, namely, the Variolous Test. Hundreds were inoculated with cowpox and subsequently with smallpox, and were also exposed to smallpox contagion, and as the disease did not take, it was concluded it could never take, and that the subjects of the operation were fortified for ever. The fallacy is now manifest, but it was by no means manifest in 1800, and all manner of men received and propagated the fable with energetic sincerity. It was once admitted that a tub full of water did not overflow when a fish was slipped into it, and many explanations were current of the curious phenomenon until a sceptical spirit suggested that the experiment be tried. A like spirit might have suggested that it was expedient to wait and see whether cowpox was indeed a perpetual defence against smallpox, inasmuch as nature had an awkward habit of confuting prognostications apparently irrefragable.

The ease with which it was asserted cowpox inoculation could be performed, coupled with its harmlessness, not to say wholesomeness, and the absolute security it afforded against smallpox, induced benevolent busybodies to set up as vaccinators all over the country. What the kindly quack delights in is something cheap and handy with a touch of mystery and the promise of immeasurable advantage—conditions which the new practice completely fulfilled. The memoirs of the time, especially of the Evangelical party, abound with instances in which this good soul and that good soul had vaccinated so many hundreds or thousands, delivering them from the peril of an awful disease. Thus in the Gentleman’s Magazine, for December, 1800, we read—

And John Ring relates—

Of course medical practitioners had little favour for this sort of intrusion into their domain, but Jenner encouraged and boasted himself in the domestic diffusion of the discovery. By and by when disasters became common it was found extremely convenient to ascribe them to these unskilled operators; and ultimately vaccination was resigned entirely to the legally qualified practitioner, whose failures are rarely inquired into, and when proclaimed are, as professional matter of course, explicitly denied.

Jenner after six months of lionising left London on 23rd June, 1800, and on his way home passed through Oxford where he was introduced to Dr. Marlow, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and other dignitaries, who subscribed the following testimonial, drawn up by Sir Christopher Pegge, Reader in Anatomy—

When a prophet in the country turns out a prophet in London his country neighbours begin to believe in him; and thus it was with Jenner. His metropolitan reputation was reflected in Gloucestershire. Earl Berkeley wrote to the Duke of Beaufort—

And the sense of this obligation took shape in a service of plate presented in 1801 and bearing this inscription—

Presented by

THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY OF

THE COUNTY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE

To their Countryman

EDWARD JENNER, M.D., F.R.S.

As a Testimony of the high sense they entertain of those
Eminent Abilities which discovered and that
Disinterested Philanthropy which
promulgated

THE VACCINE INOCULATION.