TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
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.
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] |
| Mr. Enoch Robinson’s Opinion, | [xxx] |
| Cruelty of Marking, | [xxx] |
| Revaccination Introduced, | [xxxi] |
| Vaccinisation, | [xxxii] |
| Absurdity of Revaccination, | [xxxii] |
| The Reduction of Smallpox, | [xxxiii] |
| Has Vaccination saved Life? | [xxxiii] |
| Who are the Unvaccinated? | [xxxiv] |
| Unvaccinated Death-rates, | [xxxv] |
| Nurses exempt from Smallpox, | [xxxvi] |
| Pock-marked Faces, | [xxxvii] |
| Vaccinia a real Disease, | [xxxix] |
| Vaccinal Fatalities, | [xl] |
| Vaccinia Modified in its Recipients, | [xli] |
| Vaccinia plus other Disease, | [xlii] |
| Statistical Evidence of extra Disease, | [xliii] |
| Vaccinia aggravates Disease, | [xlv] |
| Origin of Compulsory Vaccination, | [xlv] |
| Resistance, Inflexible Resistance, | [xlvi] |
| Compulsory Education and Vaccination, | [xlvii] |
| Conditions of the Conflict, | [xlviii] |
| A Word for the Author, | [xlix] |
| L’Envoi, | [ l] |
| Dr. Garth Wilkinson’s Catechism, | [l] |
| I.—Variolation. | ||
| Chapter I.— | Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston, | [1] |
| II.— | Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, | [8] |
| III.— | Maitland’s Experiments, | [12] |
| IV.— | The First Opponents of Inoculation, | [21] |
| V.— | Collapse of Inoculation, | [29] |
| VI.— | Revival of Inoculation, | [36] |
| VII.— | Triumph of Inoculation, | [45] |
| VIII.— | Inoculation Abroad, | [56] |
| IX.— | Inoculation superseded and suppressed, | [66] |
| X.— | As to the Prevalence of Smallpox in the 18th Century, | [76] |
| II.—Vaccination. | ||
| Chapter I.— | Jenner’s Earlier Years, | [91] |
| II.— | Jenner’s Inquiry, 1798, | [103] |
| III.— | Jenner in 1798, | [127] |
| IV.— | Pearson’s Inquiry, | [136] |
| V.— | Woodville, Pearson, and Jenner, | [145] |
| VI.— | Jenner’s Further Observations, | [152] |
| VII.— | Operations in London, 1800, | [159] |
| VIII.— | Triumph of the New Inoculation, | [171] |
| IX.— | A Dishonourable Transformation, | [177] |
| X.— | Jenner before Parliament, 1802, | [183] |
| XI.— | Pearson’s Examination, | [197] |
| XII.— | Observations on the Position in 1802, | [208] |
| XIII.— | The Royal Jennerian Society, | [218] |
| XIV.— | Application to Parliament for Jenner’s Relief, 1806, | [230] |
| XV.— | Report of the Royal College of Physicians, | [235] |
| XVI.— | Jenner Relieved, 1807, | [243] |
| XVII.— | Vaccination Established and Endowed, | [250] |
| XVIII.— | Horsegrease as a source of Vaccine, | [259] |
| XIX.— | John Birch, | [274] |
| XX.— | Goldson and Brown, | [283] |
| XXI.— | Moseley, Rowley and Squirrel, | [289] |
| XXII.— | William Cobbett, | [303] |
| XXIII.— | The Grosvenor Case, | [317] |
| XXIV.— | Dr. John Walker, | [322] |
| XXV.— | Jenner’s Later Writings, | [333] |
| XXVI.— | Baron’s Life of Jenner, | [349] |
| XXVII.— | The Medical Position in 1823, | [363] |
| XXVIII.— | Introduction of Vaccination to the United States, | [370] |
| XXIX.— | Introduction of Vaccination to India and the East, | [383] |
| XXX.— | Diffusion of Vaccination throughout Europe, | [395] |
| XXXI.— | Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, | [408] |
| XXXII.— | Newcastle Smallpox: a Common Story, | [424] |
| XXXIII.— | The Norwich Epidemic—1819, | [431] |
| XXXIV.— | Smallpox Displaced and Replaced: Dr. Watt’s Discovery.—Glasgow, 1813, | [439] |
| XXXV.— | The National Vaccine Establishment—1808-40, | [453] |
| XXXVI.— | The National Vaccine Establishment—1841-50, | [470] |
| XXXVII.— | Vaccination Enforced—1853, | [477] |
| XXXVIII.— | Universal Compulsion Demanded—1855, | [491] |
| XXXIX.— | John Gibbs’s Letter—1855, | [500] |
| XL.— | Simon’s Defence and Hamernik’s Judgment, | [510] |
| XLI.— | Compulsion Intensified—1861 and 1867, | [526] |
| XLII.— | The Gathering Movement, 1867-70, | [540] |
| XLIII.— | House of Commons Committee, 1871, | [552] |
| XLIV.— | The Struggle for Freedom, | [573] |
| Notes—Origin of the Term Vaccination, | [229] | |
| Vaccination a Statistical Question, | [596] | |
| Index, | [597] | |
| Illustrations. | ||
| Edward Jenner from Statue by Monteverde, | [Frontispiece.] | |
| John Gibbs, | [508] | |