---

CHAPTER XI.

PEARSON’S EXAMINATION.[128]

A few weeks after the award of £10,000 to Jenner by the House of Commons, Dr. Pearson published An Examination of the report of the committee. He did not contest Jenner’s claim to consideration, but the ground on which it was advanced, and on which it was conceded; drawing attention to the manner in which the claims set forth in Jenner’s petition had been reduced to “inoculation from one human being to another,” whilst a new claim was invented for him, “to wit, the mode of transferring, indefinitely, the vaccine matter without any diminution of its specific power.”

What Pearson held, and rightly held, was, that the public acceptance of the New Inoculation was due to Woodville and himself, and not to Jenner—

Pearson also claimed to have cleared away difficulties created by Jenner’s statements, some of which were most prejudicial to the public acceptance of the New Inoculation—

One can only say of these statements of Pearson as against Jenner, that they are simple matters of fact, impugn them whoso list. It is impossible to controvert Pearson’s assertion—

They had to find out for themselves when to take virus from the cow, how to preserve it when taken, how to dress inoculated arms, when to take virus from the arm, and, in short, to do everything that constitutes the difference between a suggestion and an art.

Pearson, too, as we have seen, had a leading part in the formation of the first Institution for the Inoculation of the Vaccine Pock, with which Jenner had not only nothing to do, but would have nothing to do: concerning which wrote Pearson—

As to Jenner keeping the secret of Cowpox and making a great fortune out of it, Pearson replied, first, that he had not proved his remedy; second, that he would have had to persuade the public to believe in him; and, third, that too much was known about Cowpox to have made a secret possible. Moreover, the assertion that he might have earned £10,000 a year and a fortune of £150,000 was absurd—

When it was further said, that experiments in Vaccine Inoculation had occupied twenty years of Jenner’s life, that they had cost him £6000, and that he had surrendered a practice of £600 a year in the populous neighbourhood of Berkeley for the public benefit—he would not trust himself to characterise the allegations.

His own position, Pearson thus defined—

Pearson further indicated on what conditions he would have been satisfied to see Jenner rewarded—

Whilst willing that Jenner should be rewarded, for Woodville and for himself, Pearson wanted nothing: he simply maintained that the judgment of the House of Commons Committee should have recognised the facts of the situation. He observed—

Considering the injustice to which Pearson had been subjected, and the provocation he had received, it is impossible to refrain from admiration of the serene and impartial temper in which he composed his Examination. Had he sat as judge between Jenner and himself, he could not have stated the case with greater accuracy and absence of bias. He fell into no exaggeration; he indulged in no sarcasm; he descended to no abuse. He set forth the incidents of the New Inoculation with the imperial simplicity and dignity of truth. Where others had gone crazed, he preserved some degree of sanity. He held it to be premature to proclaim the extinction of Smallpox, or to say with Jenner that reports of failure and injury from inoculated Cowpox were beneath contempt. It was only time and experience that could warrant such absolute assertion and prediction.

It is said that in hurricanes of panic or enthusiasm, wise men go home and keep quiet until the sky clears, resistance being folly. For immediate effect resistance may be folly, but the protest of truth is sometimes imperative, whatever the disposition of the mob. Pearson took little at the time by his Examination: it entered into far too many details for general apprehension; and it was convenient to account for his opposition as due to jealousy and envy. Jenner attempted no reply, and assumed profound disdain. His silence was judicious, but it was not from disdain.

---

At this day it is easy to see that Pearson as against Jenner played his part badly, failing to recognise his proper advantage. Jenner’s prescription in the Inquiry of 1798 was not Cowpox. It was Horsegrease Cowpox. It was a disease of the horse inoculated on the cow. Cowpox per se he expressly rejected as useless, having no specific effect on the human constitution. Pearson and Woodville entertained Jenner’s prescription in good faith. They tried to generate pox on the cow with grease from the horse, but did not succeed. Reluctantly they abandoned Jenner’s prescription, and resorted to Cowpox.

Whilst Pearson and Woodville were without prejudice against Horsegrease Cowpox, it was otherwise with the public. The origin of Cowpox in Horsegrease was voted detestable, and had the origin been maintained, it is not improbable that the New Inoculation would have proved abortive.

This difficulty Pearson and Woodville, the chief promoters of the New Inoculation, cleared away. They had tried Horsegrease; they considered they had disproved Jenner’s assertion concerning it; and they were able to assure the public that they inoculated with Cowpox, and nothing but Cowpox, and had no connection with Horsegrease whatever. The public were satisfied; and Inoculation with Cowpox became the rage, fashionable and philanthropic.

What did Jenner do? Did he vindicate his prescription, the fruit of thirty years of incessant thought, observation and experiment? He did not. On the contrary he dropped it. He said not another word about it; and proceeded to claim Cowpox as employed by Pearson and Woodville as his discovery. In his petition to Parliament there was no mention of Horsegrease Cowpox; but Cowpox, with “its beneficial effect of rendering the persons inoculated therewith perfectly secure through life from the infection of Smallpox,” was set forth as the result of his most attentive and laborious investigation at the sacrifice of time, money, and professional advancement. We have to recollect that Jenner was inspired with what he called “the fond hope of enjoying independence,” and he was not slow to recognise, that if he stood by Horsegrease Cowpox his “fond hope” would be wrecked. The statement may seem incredible, but the fact of the transformation is manifest at large to any one who will take the trouble to compare Jenner’s Inquiry of 1798 with his Petition to the House of Commons in 1802.

Pearson failed to arrest the imposture. He might have said to Jenner, “Your discovery was not Cowpox: that was well known to every dairymaid in your neighbourhood. Your prescription was Horsegrease Cowpox. You condemned Cowpox, which Cowpox has nevertheless been brought into use by Woodville and me. Keep to your Horsegrease Cowpox; make what you can of it; and leave us alone.”

Had Pearson taken this course, he would have fixed Jenner to his discovery, such as it was, and have clearly defined and established his own and Woodville’s service in rendering the New Inoculation practicable and popular. But he failed to draw a firm line between Woodville and himself and Jenner, and to insist that they were operating, not only with a different pox, but with a form of pox by him rejected as useless. Through this default, he enabled Jenner to intrude into a province that was not his own, and to reap where he had not sown, and gather where he had not strawed. It is to be admitted that the facts as stated were all involved in Pearson’s Examination, but they were involved, and required picking out and sharper definition to give them effect. Truth is truth, but truth to have its rightful influence has to be made plain. It is of little avail to have a good cause at law if the means are wanting to place its goodness manifest and paramount over contention to the contrary.

This, too, may be observed: Pearson was not in condition to offer the manner of resistance specified. To have turned Jenner’s flank, it would have been necessary to discredit Cowpox; and Pearson was committed to Cowpox. Jenner had been familiar from youth with the dairymaids’ faith in Cowpox. Why then did he not advertise its virtue? Because it had been proved to him that the dairymaids’ confidence was illusory. His recommendation of Horsegrease Cowpox attested his distrust in Cowpox. If Pearson had asked himself, What induced Jenner to set aside Cowpox for Horsegrease Cowpox? the answer would have revealed to him a whole series of facts to the discredit of that prophylaxy of which he and Woodville had constituted themselves advocates. Thus, fettered by his own prepossession, Pearson was unable to deal effectually with Jenner without incurring a disenchantment fatal to his own enterprise.

---

When we recognise that Jenner’s prescription was a disease of the horse communicated to the cow, which Pearson and Woodville set aside for Cowpox, the controversy as to the originator of the use of Cowpox for inoculation loses significance. We have to assert peremptorily that Jenner had no claim to the use of Cowpox whatever. It is true that he advanced the claim in his Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation in 1801, and in his Petition to Parliament in 1802; but those who refer to his Inquiry of 1798 will require no further proof of his mendacity. That his claim to the use of Cowpox was entertained can only be ascribed to that indolence, ineptitude and ignorance on the part of the world whereon quacks presume and prosper.

It was Pearson and Woodville, I once more repeat, who diffused and popularised Cowpox; and Pearson’s inquiries left no doubt that the faith in Cowpox as a preventive of Smallpox was widely entertained; and that the substitution of Cowpox for Smallpox in inoculation was a mere question of time and accident. Mr. Downe of Bridport informed Pearson that a surgeon in his neighbourhood suffered discredit in practice because it was reported that he inoculated with Cowpox instead of Smallpox; and the papers of Mr. Nash, surgeon, of Shaftesbury proved that in 1781 he had the project of Cowpox Inoculation distinctly before him. The evidence of Benjamin Jesty, farmer of Downshay in the Isle of Purbeck, has usually been taken as most conclusive in relation to the immanence of the New Inoculation in the common mind. Jesty was invited to London by the conductors of the Original Vaccine Pock Institution, 44 Broad Street, Golden Square; and in August, 1805, they had him with his wife and two sons under examination. In their report[130] it is said—

It is to be observed that insusceptibility to Smallpox was by no means infrequent apart from Cowpox; and as fear of Smallpox predisposes to attack, so, on the other hand, confidence in security, whether by Cowpox or other charm, would tend to exemption.

Jesty’s reasons for his experiment were thus specified—

In these reasons we have the Cowpox doctrine as prevalent in Dorsetshire, which Jesty developed in family practice. The report proceeds—

It is curious how evidence conforms to prepossession. Dr. Pearson and his associates were persuaded that as no one could have Smallpox twice, neither could any one have Cowpox twice. Jesty had Cowpox when young, and when at three score they found him insusceptible, they took it for granted that re-vaccination was impossible. Robert Jesty, who had Cowpox thirty-one years before was at the same time inoculated with Smallpox, and as that likewise failed to take, the experiment enforced the desired conclusion.

Having turned out so well, praise and portraiture were bestowed on Jesty—

In the church-yard of Worth Matravers, Dorset, there is a grave-stone with this inscription—

Jesty is frequently played off against Jenner, as having anticipated him, but under a misapprehension. Jesty inoculated with Cowpox, sharing the dairymaids’ faith that it prevented Smallpox. Jenner knew that the dairymaids were wrong, and that Cowpox did not avert Smallpox. What he recommended was Cowpox produced by Horsegrease. Pearson and Woodville disregarded Jenner’s recommendation and made use of Cowpox like Jesty, which substitution Jenner did not resist; and not only did not resist, but claimed as the fulfilment of his programme! Jenner should never be suffered to get mixed up with Jesty, and the course of his procedure be thereby obscured.

I am explicit to iteration because the truth is not recognised and may be accounted incredible. In another way the facts may be thrown into relief if we inquire, How would Jenner have fared had he applied for a patent? Suppose his several publications were submitted to a patent-agent, In what manner could a tenable specification be evolved from these materials?

By no ingenuity could a valid patent be got out of these documents. If Horsegrease Cowpox were selected as the basis of claim, what of the repudiation of Cowpox? and if Cowpox, what of Horsegrease Cowpox? And if Horsegrease Cowpox, what of the ascription of its virtue to common repute? And if Cowpox, was not the committee of the House of Commons in 1802 compelled to disallow Jenner’s claim to the discovery, and to define and limit his merit to the propagation of its virus from arm to arm? It was, however, Pearson and Woodville who first propagated Cowpox from arm to arm: Jenner’s start being made with Horsegrease Cowpox. But allowing him so much credit, it is nevertheless to be remembered that it was at that time a frequent practice to inoculate with Smallpox from arm to arm; and the substitution of Cowpox for Smallpox was a trifle for which to pay £10,000 and dissolve in ecstasies of admiration.