The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact ChaptersWhite, William
History
The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-Fact Chapters
White, William
Vaccination
Dr. SKEY, physician to the Worcester Hospital, testified that
in the spring of 1801 smallpox was epidemic in Worcester. He
inoculated a number of children with cowpox, and none of them took
smallpox although constantly exposed to contagion.
Dr. THORNTON, physician to the Marylebone Dispensary, had
inoculated a patient with cowpox, and afterwards with smallpox at
twelve different times during the past three years without effect.
He had even slept with a person in natural smallpox, who died, but
took no harm. When at Lord Lonsdale’s in the North he had operated
on upwards of a thousand, and had completely satisfied himself, and
all the medical practitioners in that part of England, that cowpox
was a mild disease, hardly deserving the name of a disease. It was
not contagious; it never disfigured the person, never produced
blindness, nor excited other diseases. It was equally safe whether
during the period of pregnancy, or the earliest infancy, or extreme
old age.
Dr. BAILLIE then gave his influential judgment. He thought cowpox
an extremely mild disease, and when a patient had properly
undergone it, he was perfectly secure from the future infection
of smallpox: and further, if Dr. Jenner had not chosen openly and
honourably to explain to the public all he knew upon the subject,
he might have acquired a considerable fortune. In his opinion it
was the most important discovery ever made in medicine.
Mr. DAVID TAYLOR, surgeon of Wootton-under-Edge, had inoculated
about two thousand persons with cowpox without a single
failure, nor had he met with any ulcerations, tumours, or other
diseases following the operation. He knew Jenner’s practice in
Gloucestershire. It was in a very populous neighbourhood where
there was not another physician within sixteen miles. He had
surrendered an income of £600 a year to devote himself to the
public service.
As a final specimen of this medical evidence I may cite Mr. JOHN
RING, the petitioner’s henchman. He considered Jenner the author of
Vaccine Inoculation, a discovery the most valuable and important
ever made by man. It was a perfect and permanent security against
smallpox. He had himself inoculated about 1200, of whom a thousand
had exposed themselves to smallpox infection with impunity.
There was no danger whatever from the New Inoculation unless
from ignorance and neglect. One in every hundred inoculated with
smallpox in London died, owing to the unwholesome atmosphere and
the necessity of operating on children at an improper age. If
Jenner had kept his discovery to himself he might have made £10,000
a year by it; for others had got as much or more by the practice of
physic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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