The noble Lady sent for me last April, and when I came, she told me she was now resolved to have her daughter inoculated, and desired me forthwith to find out matter for the purpose. I pleaded for a delay of a week or two, the weather being then cold and wet. I also prayed, that any two physicians whom she thought fit, might be called, not only to consult the health and safety of the child, but likewise to be eye witnesses of the practice, and contribute to the credit and reputation of it. This was at first denied me, it might be out of a design to keep it secret, or lest it should come to nothing.

In the meantime having found proper matter, I engrafted the child in both arms, after the usual manner. She continued easy and well till the tenth night, when she was observed to be a little hot and feverish. An ancient apothecary in the neighbourhood being then called, prudently advised not to give the child medicine, assuring the parents there was no danger, and that the heat would quickly abate, which accordingly it did, and the smallpox began next morning to appear. Three learned physicians of the college were admitted, one after another, to visit the young lady; they are all gentlemen of honour, and will on all occasions declare, as they have done hitherto, that they saw Miss Wortley playing about the room, cheerful and well, with the smallpox raised upon her; and that in a few days after she perfectly recovered of them. Several ladies, and other persons of distinction, also visited this young patient, and can attest the truth of this fact.

One of the learned physicians who had visited Miss Wortley, having some years since fully informed himself of this method of practice, and being thoroughly satisfied of the safety and reasonableness of it, at length resolved to try it in his own family; he had formerly lost some children in a very malignant kind of the smallpox, and therefore advised me to lose no time to engraft the only son he had left. The boy (who was not quite six years of age) being of a pretty warm and sanguine complexion, the Doctor ordered about five ounces of blood to be taken from him; and then, in ten days after, having found matter which he liked, I inoculated him in both arms. This was performed the 11th of May, 1721.

Only the higher motive of hoping to save numberless lives could have given Lady Mary courage to resolve upon bringing home the discovery. For what an arduous, what a fearful, and, we may add, what a thankless enterprise it was, nobody is now in the least aware. Those who have heard her applauded for it ever since they were born, and have also seen how joyfully vaccination was welcomed in their own days, may naturally conclude that when once the experiment had been made, and had been proved successful, she could have nothing to do but to sit down triumphant, and receive the thanks and blessings of her countrymen. But it was far otherwise.... Lady Mary protested that in four or five years immediately succeeding her arrival at home, she seldom passed a day without repenting of her patriotic undertaking; and she vowed that she never would have attempted it, if she had foreseen the vexation, the persecution, and even the obloquy it brought upon her. The clamours raised against the practice, and of course against her, were beyond belief. The facility rose in arms to a man, foretelling failure and the most disastrous consequences; the clergy descanted from their pulpits on the impiety of thus seeking to take events out of the hand of Providence; the common people were taught to look at her as an unnatural mother, who had risked the lives of her own children.... We now read in grave medical biography that the discovery was instantly hailed, and the method adopted, by the principal members of the profession.... But what said Lady Mary of the actual fact and actual time? Why, that the four great physicians deputed by Government to watch the progress of her daughter’s inoculation, betrayed not only such incredulity as to its success, but such an unwillingness to have it succeed, such an evident spirit of rancour and malignity, that she never cared to leave the child alone with them one second, lest it should in some secret way suffer from their interference.[16]

I performed the operation of inoculating the smallpox on six condemned criminals at Newgate in presence of several eminent physicians, surgeons, and others. The names of the criminals were—

One day Mr. Cook, an eminent Turkey merchant, having seen the persons engrafted in Newgate, and having fully considered their incisions and eruptions, he openly declared they were the very same as he had observed in Turkey, having seen a great many instances; and that we might be assured they would never again be infected with smallpox.

A learned author has given an account of the practice of sowing smallpox, as they call it, known to the Chinese above three hundred years, which is this. They take the skins of some of the dried pustules, which are fallen from the body, and put them into a porcelain bottle, stopping the mouth of it very close with wax. When they have a mind to infect any one, they make up three or four of these skins, putting between them with one grain of musk into a tent with cotton, which they put up the nostrils.

I myself have had an opportunity of making an experiment to this purpose. For, when in the year 1721, by order of his Sacred Majesty, both for the sake of his own family, and of his subjects, a trial was to be made upon seven condemned malefactors, whether or not the smallpox could safely be communicated by inoculation; I easily obtained leave to make the Chinese experiment in one of them. There was among those who were chosen out to undergo the operation, a young girl of eighteen years of age. I put into her nostrils a tent, wetted with matter taken out of ripe pustules. The event answered: for she, in like manner with the others, who were infected by incisions made in the skin, fell sick, and recovered; but suffered much more than they did, being, immediately after the poison was received into the nose, miserably tormented with sharp pains in her head, and a fever, which never left her till the eruption of the pustules.[17]

On the 6th of September they were all dismissed to their several counties and habitations. The thing has been successful on all the five, far beyond my expectation, considering their age, habit of body, and circumstances; and it has perfectly answered Dr. Timoni’s account of the practice, and also the experience of all who have seen it in Turkey.[18]

Upon the whole, Sir, in the cases mentioned, there was nothing like the smallpox, either in symptoms, appearances, advance of the pustules, or the course of the distemper. And it would puzzle any one to conceive how it is possible that smallpox can ever be prevented by inoculation. With the exception of one of the men, the girl who had cotton dipped in matter thrust up her nostrils, had as fair a smallpox as any in the place.[19]

Upon these trials, and several others in private families [wrote Sir Hans Sloane], the Princess of Wales sent for me to ask my opinion of the inoculation of the Princesses. I told Her Royal Highness, that by what appeared in the several essays, it seemed to be a method to secure people from the great dangers attending smallpox in the natural way. That preparations by diet and necessary precautions being taken, made the practice very desirable; but that not being certain of the consequences which might happen, I would not persuade nor advise the making trials upon patients of such importance to the public. The Princess then asked me if I would dissuade her from it: to which I made answer that I would not, in a matter so likely to be of such advantage. Her reply was, that she was then resolved to have it done, and ordered me to go to the King, who commanded me to wait upon him on the occasion. I told his Majesty my opinion, that it was impossible to be certain, but that raising such a commotion in the blood there might happen dangerous accidents not foreseen: but he replied that such might and had happened to persons who had lost their lives by bleeding in a pleurisy, and taking physic in any distemper, let never so much care be taken. I told his Majesty that I thought this to be the same case, and the matter was concluded upon, and succeeded as usual, without any danger during the operation, or the least ill symptom or disorder since.[20]

I could bring a great many cases of persons inoculated in Turkey to prove the constant and certain success of the practice; in all which I have never seen any miscarriage, except in one, which was wholly due to the rashness and inadvertence of a surgeon at Constantinople.

Is it not a matter of the greatest importance for us to know how to prevent the mighty contagion of the smallpox, and how to preserve our children from the violent attacks and fatal effects of it?

I remember Mr. Maitland at Child’s Coffee House, when the experiment was just begun at Newgate, was as confident and positive of the success and security proposed by inoculation as if he had had twenty years experience without any miscarriage, which made those who heard him justly suspect he was more concerned for the employ than for the success of it.[21]

2nd October, 1721.—After due preparation of the body, I engrafted Mary Batt, an infant of two years and a half old, daughter of Thomas Batt, a Quaker, living at Temple, within three miles of Hertford. The red spots and flushings appeared on her face and neck the fourth day; and she kept playing about well till the seventh or eighth, when she became a little heavy and thirsty, with a fuller and quicker pulse; then the pustules came out fresh and full, and the incisions discharged a thick and well digested matter. She had not above twenty in all upon her; they continued about three or four days, then dried away and fell off, and the child recovered perfectly.

Thus far all was well; but what happened afterwards was, I must own, not a little surprising to me, not having seen or observed anything like it before. The case was in short this. Six of Mr. Batt’s domestic servants, namely, four men and two maids, who all in their turns were wont to hug and caress this child whilst under the operation, and the pustules were out upon her, never suspected them to be catching, nor indeed did I, were all seized with the right natural smallpox, of several and very different kinds; for some had the round distinct sort, some the small continued, and others the confluent; all of ’em had a great many, but especially the last, with the usual bad symptoms, and very narrowly escaped. But they all (God be thanked) did well (except one maid, that would not be governed under the distemper, who died of it,) and now enjoy a perfect state of health.[22]

The practice prudently managed, is always safe and useful, and the issue ever certain and salutary.[23]

12th October, 1721.—I inoculated Joseph and Benjamin, sons of William Heath, of Hertford; the first of about seven, and the second three years of age; both with the same matter and at the same time: the last had a gentle and favourable kind; but the first, namely, Joseph, being a fat, foul, gluttonous boy, who would not be confined to the rules and directions I had strictly charged his mother withal, as to diet and keeping warm, was taken very ill before the eruption, and after it had a great load of the continued small kind, but at last recovered and did well.

What a mighty difference is here to be observed between those two boys! The reason of it seems to be plainly this: the younger, who had the favourable kind, was of a clean habit, moderate appetite, and easily governed during the whole process. The elder was not only of a gross foul constitution, but likewise had a voracious appetite, always eating and filling his belly with the coarsest food—as cheese, fat country pudding, cold boiled beef, and the like, which I saw myself as I came in by chance the third day after the operation; nor was there any care taken to restrain or keep him within doors in cold, windy, frosty weather; he once wet his feet in water—insomuch that had he taken the smallpox by infection, the world could not have saved his life. Hence it appears how necessary it is to cleanse thoroughly foul habits before the operation, and, withal, to keep patients to a very strict regimen under it.[24]

The smallpox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting.... Every year thousands undergo its operation; and the French ambassador says pleasantly that they take the smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take waters in other countries. There is no example of anyone that has died in it.