TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of each Chapter. Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. THE STORY OF A GREAT DELUSION. [Illustration: EDWARD JENNER. _From the statue by Monteverde._] THE STORY OF A GREAT DELUSION IN A SERIES OF MATTER-OF-FACT CHAPTERS. BY WILLIAM WHITE. All the world assenting, and continually repeating and reverberating, there soon comes that singular phenomenon, which the Germans call Swarmery, or the “Gathering of Men in Swarms,” and what prodigies they are in the habit of doing and believing, when thrown into that miraculous condition.... Singular, in the case of human swarms, with what perfection of unanimity and quasi-religious conviction the stupidest absurdities can be received as axioms of Euclid, nay as articles of faith, which you are not only to believe, unless malignantly insane, but are (if you have any honour or morality) to push into practice, and without delay see _done_, if your soul would live!--THOMAS CARLYLE. LONDON: E. W. ALLEN, 4 AVE MARIA LANE. 1885. GLASGOW: HAY NISBET AND CO., PRINTERS, STOCKWELL STREET. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE Prefatory, ix Variolation, x The Precursor of Vaccination, xi Immediate Triumph of Vaccination, xii Jenner’s Procedure, xiii Horsegrease Cowpox, xiv Rejection of Jenner’s Prescription, xiv Jenner’s Transformation, xv Horsegrease Cowpox kept out of Sight, xvi Spurious Cowpox, xvi Horse Virus Vindicated, xvii Which shall it be? xviii Smallpox Cowpox, xix Condemnation of Smallpox Cowpox, xx Cowpox Revived, xxi A Cowpox Charlatan, xxii A Decorous Unanimity, xxiii Jenner’s Successive Disclaimers, xxiv Smallpox made milder, xxvi Punctures, one or several, xxvi Mr. Rigby’s Protest, xxvi Mr. (Marks) Marson, xxviii Mr. Alexander Wheeler’s Researches, xxix