In the same letter he told Jenner what some were saying about the suggested practice-- You cannot imagine how fastidious the people are with regard to this business of the cowpox. One says that it is very filthy and nasty to derive it from the sore heels of horses. Another, that we shall introduce the diseases of animals among us, and that we have already too many of our own. A third sapient set say, it is a strange odd kind of business, and they know not what to think of it. All this I hear very quietly, and recollect that a still more unfavourable reception was given to inoculation for the smallpox. Such observations were natural and to be expected. Jenner wrote to Gardner that “brick-bats and hostile weapons of every sort were flying thick around him,” but they were chiefly imaginary. His revelation was communicated to a ready world. It was no revolutionary project, but a seductive modification of existing practice. Inoculation with smallpox was the order of the day among all respectable people. The operation was troublesome and uncertain, perilous to patients and to those in contact with them; and, when all was done, it afforded no unquestionable security against the disease it was designed to avert. To a community thus harassed and anxious, came Jenner with his prescription and his promise--Substitute cowpox for smallpox and you will escape from this distress, danger, doubt. You will have a harmless fever without pustules and without risk of infection, and the security from smallpox will be absolute and perpetual. What wonder that in such circumstances Jenner’s message was heard gladly and accepted with grateful enthusiasm. That he should have encountered some resistance was inevitable, for what change is ever effected without opposition and ominous prediction? But the change Jenner proposed was the slightest of changes with the largest prospects of advantage. Unless these conditions are borne in mind, we shall never rightly understand the reception accorded by our forefathers to inoculation with cowpox. FOOTNOTES: [101] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. i. p. 154. [102] _Ibid._ p. 155. [103] Baron’s _Life of Jenner_, vol. i. p. 159. [104] Born at Rotherham, 1751. Graduated M.D., Edinburgh, and practised at Doncaster until 1784, when he removed to London. Died at his house in Hanover Square from a fall down stairs, 9th November, 1828. CHAPTER IV. PEARSON’S _INQUIRY_. Dr. Pearson’s _Inquiry concerning the History of the Cowpox_[105] is a remarkable proof of the alacrity and energy with which Jenner’s project was entertained. As observed, Jenner’s _Inquiry_ was published at the end of June, 1798, and ere six months were over, in November, 1798, appeared Pearson’s _Inquiry_, a masterly review of Jenner’s; and not only a review, but a record of investigation, personal and by correspondence with country physicians and farmers; the entire work displaying a capacity for business to which Jenner was wholly unequal.