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
I published experiments of inoculating persons with the Cowpock
to show that _they could not take the Cowpock after the
Smallpox_, contrary to Dr. Jenner. Secondly, experiments to
show that persons could not take the Cowpock who had already
gone through the Cowpock, also contrary to Dr. Jenner.[129]
Thirdly, many persons had at this period made experiments to
show that _the Cowpox did not originate in the grease of Horses’
heels_, as Dr. Jenner had asserted. In the spring of 1799, a
second publication appeared from Dr. Jenner recommending caustic
or escharotics to the inoculated parts in Cowpox, which we
found wholly unnecessary in practice; and I consider that the
distinctive characters of the Cowpock were better understood by
some of us than by Dr. Jenner himself.
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--
That the whole of Jenner’s experience extended to seven or eight
cases, and a part only of these--namely, four--were from human
subject to human subject; and not until long after Dr. Woodville
and myself had published several hundred instances of vaccine
virus transmitted from arm to arm, had he any experiments to set
alongside ours.
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--
The Vaccine Inoculation was next considerably established by
the Cowpock Institution, of which I was one of the founders,
commencing at the close of 1799; which Institution has been the
principal office for the supplying the world in general, and the
Army and Navy in particular, with matter; and where a regular
register is kept of each of the cases inoculated.
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--
Such a fortune no one ever acquired by physic in this or any
other country--far exceeding the greatest ever known, those of
Sir Theodore Mayerne in the first half of the 17th century, and
of the still greater one of Dr. Ratcliffe in the early part of
last century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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