JENNER’S TRANSFORMATION.
I am not making what is called a constructive charge against Jenner, but simply setting forth plain, undeniable matter-of-fact. I ask any one in doubt as to what I say to read Jenner’s Inquiry, published in 1798, the prescription of which is horsegrease cowpox, and the condemnation of cowpox. Turn then to his petition for largess, addressed to the House of Commons in 1802, and what do we find? Not one word about horsegrease cowpox, but this audacious assertion:—
“That your Petitioner has discovered that a disease which occasionally exists in a particular form among cattle, known by name of Cowpox, admits of being inoculated on the human frame with the most perfect ease and safety, and is attended with the singularly beneficial effect of rendering through life the person so inoculated perfectly secure from the infection of Smallpox.”
Why, that was not Jenner’s discovery! It was the notion of the dairymaids, and, so far as concerned spontaneous cowpox, was known by Jenner to be untrue. Yet, strange to say, the claim was in a measure allowed by the House of Commons, and £10,000 awarded to the imposter, and subsequently £20,000 in 1807.