Meantime, the disease, which had nearly died out among the Protestants, raged with ever-increasing virulence among the Catholics; and, the truth becoming more and more clear, even to the most devout, proper measures were at last enforced and the plague was stayed, though not until there had been a fearful waste of life among these simple-hearted believers, and germs of scepticism planted in the hearts of their children which will bear fruit for generations to come.(325)
(325) For the opposition of concientious men to vaccination in England,
see Baron, Life of Jenner, as above; also vol. ii, p. 43; also Dun's
Life of Simpson, London, 1873, pp. 248, 249; also Works of Sir J. Y.
Simpson, vol. ii. For a multitude of statistics ahowing the diminution
of smallpox after the introduction of vaccination, see Russell, p.
380. For the striking record in London for 1890, see an article in the
Edinburgh review for January, 1891. The general statement referred to
was made in a speech some years since by Sir Spencer Wells. For recent
scattered cases of feeble opposition to vaccination by Protestant
ministers, see William White, The Great Delusion, London, 1885, passim.
For opposition of the Roman Catholic clergy and peasantry in Canada
to vaccination during the smallpox plague of 1885, see the English,
Canadian, and American newspapers, but especially the very temperate and
accurate correspondence in the New York Evening Post during September
and October of that year.
Another class of cases in which the theologic spirit has allied itself with the retrograde party in medical science is found in the history of certain remedial agents; and first may be named cocaine. As early as the middle of the sixteenth century the value of coca had been discovered in South America; the natives of Peru prized it highly, and two eminent Jesuits, Joseph Acosta and Antonio Julian, were converted to this view. But the conservative spirit in the Church was too strong; in 1567 the Second Council of Lima, consisting of bishops from all parts of South America, condemned it, and two years later came a royal decree declaring that "the notions entertained by the natives regarding it are an illusion of the devil."
As a pendant to this singular mistake on the part of the older Church came another committed by many Protestants. In the early years of the seventeenth century the Jesuit missionaries in South America learned from the natives the value of the so-called Peruvian bark in the treatment of ague; and in 1638, the Countess of Cinchon, Regent of Peru, having derived great benefit from the new remedy, it was introduced into Europe. Although its alkaloid, quinine, is perhaps the nearest approach to a medical specific, and has diminished the death rate in certain regions to an amazing extent, its introduction was bitterly opposed by many conservative members of the medical profession, and in this opposition large numbers of ultra-Protestants joined, out of hostility to the Roman Church. In the heat of sectarian feeling the new remedy was stigmatized as "an invention of the devil"; and so strong was this opposition that it was not introduced into England until 1653, and even then its use was long held back, owing mainly to anti-Catholic feeling.
What the theological method on the ultra-Protestant side could do to help the world at this very time is seen in the fact that, while this struggle was going on, Hoffmann was attempting to give a scientific theory of the action of the devil in causing Job's boils. This effort at a quasi-scientific explanation which should satisfy the theological spirit, comical as it at first seems, is really worthy of serious notice, because it must be considered as the beginning of that inevitable effort at compromise which we see in the history of every science when it begins to appear triumphant.(326)
(326) For the opposition of the South American Church authorities to
the introduction of coca, etc., see Martindale, Coca, Cocaine, and its
Salts, London, 1886, p. 7. As to theological and sectarian resistance to
quinine, see Russell, pp. 194, 253; also Eccles; also Meryon, History of
Medicine, London, 1861, vol. i, p. 74, note. For the great decrease in
deaths by fever after the use of Peruvian bark began, see statistical
tables given in Russell, p. 252; and for Hoffmann's attempt at
compromise, ibid., p. 294.
But I pass to a typical conflict in our days, and in a Protestant country. In 1847, James Young Simpson, a Scotch physician, who afterward rose to the highest eminence in his profession, having advocated the use of anaesthetics in obstetrical cases, was immediately met by a storm of opposition. This hostility flowed from an ancient and time-honoured belief in Scotland. As far back as the year 1591, Eufame Macalyane, a lady of rank, being charged with seeking the aid of Agnes Sampson for the relief of pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, was burned alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; and this old theological view persisted even to the middle of the nineteenth century. From pulpit after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abundantly, the ordinary declaration being that to use chloroform was "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman." Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to defend the blessing which he brought into use; but he seemed about to be overcome, when he seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by which a great cause was ever won: "My opponents forget," he said, "the twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the record of the first surgical operation ever performed, and that text proves that the Maker of the universe, before he took the rib from Adam's side for the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." This was a stunning blow, but it did not entirely kill the opposition; they had strength left to maintain that the "deep sleep of Adam took place before the introduction of pain into the world—in a state of innocence." But now a new champion intervened—Thomas Chalmers: with a few pungent arguments from his pulpit he scattered the enemy forever, and the greatest battle of science against suffering was won. This victory was won not less for religion. Wisely did those who raised the monument at Boston to one of the discoverers of anaesthetics inscribe upon its pedestal the words from our sacred text, "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."(327)
(327) For the case of Eufame Macalyane, se Dalyell, Darker Superstitions
of Scotland, pp. 130, 133. For the contest of Simpson with Scotch
ecclesiatical authorities, see Duns, Life of Sir J. Y. Simpson, London,
1873, pp. 215-222, and 256-260.