We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing his professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a young countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of small-pox being casually mentioned, she remarked she could not take the small-pox because she had had cow-pox; and he then learnt that it was a popular notion in that district, that milkers who had been infected with a peculiar eruption which sometimes occurred on the udder of the cow, were completely secure against the small-pox. The medical gentlemen of the district told Jenner that the security which it gave was not perfect; and Sir George Baker, the physician, treated it as a popular error. But Jenner thought otherwise; and although John Hunter and other eminent surgeons disregarded the subject, Jenner pursued it. He found at Berkeley that some persons, to whom it was impossible to give small-pox by inoculation, had had cow-pox; but that others who had had cow-pox yet received small-pox. This led to the doctor's discovery that the cow was subject to a certain eruption, which had the power of guarding from small-pox; and next, that it might be possible to propagate the cow-pox, and with it security from the small-pox, first from the cow to the human body, and thence from one person to another. Here, then, was an important discovery, that matter from the cow, intentionally inserted into the body, gave a slighter ailment than when received otherwise, and yet had the same effect of completely preventing small-pox. But of what advantage was it for mankind that the cows of Gloucestershire possessed a matter thus singularly powerful? How were persons living at a distance to derive benefit from this great discovery? Dr. Jenner, having inoculated several persons from a cow, took the matter from the human vesicles thus produced, and inoculated others, and others from them again; thus making it pass in succession through many individuals, and all with the same good effect in preventing small-pox.
An opportunity occurred of making a trial of the latter on May 14, 1796 (a day still commemorated by the annual festival at Berlin), when a boy, aged eight years, was vaccinated with matter from the hands of a milkmaid; the experiment succeeded, and he was inoculated for small-pox on July 1st following without the least effect. Dr. Jenner then extended his experiments, and in 1798 published his first memoir on the subject. He had originally intended to communicate his results to the Royal Society, but was admonished not to do so, lest it should injure the character which he had previously acquired among scientific persons by his paper on the natural history of the cuckoo. In the above work Dr. Jenner announces the security against small-pox afforded by the true cow-pox, and also traces the origin of that disease in the cow to a similar affection of the heel of the horse.
The method, however, met with much opposition, until, in the following year, thirty-three leading physicians and forty eminent surgeons of London signed an earnest expression of their confidence in the efficacy of the cow-pox. The royal family of England exerted themselves to encourage Jenner; the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of York, the king, the Prince of Wales, and the queen bestowed great attention upon Jenner. The incalculable utility of cow-pox was at last evinced; and observation and experience furnished evidence enough to satisfy the Baillies and Heberdens, the Monros and Gregorys of Britain, as well as the physicians of Europe, India, and America. The new practice now began to supersede the old plan pursued by the Small-pox Hospital, which had been founded for inoculation. The two systems were each pursued until 1808, when the hospital governors discontinued small-pox inoculation.
A committee of Parliament was now appointed to consider the claims of Jenner upon the gratitude of his country. It was clearly proved that he had converted into scientific demonstration a tradition of the peasantry. Two parliamentary grants, of £10,000 and £20,000, were voted to him. In 1808 the National Vaccine Establishment was formed by Government, and placed under his direction. Honors were profusely showered upon him by various foreign princes, as well as by the principal learned bodies of Europe.
Dr. Jenner passed the remainder of his years principally at Berkeley and at Cheltenham, continuing to the last, his inquiries on the great object of his life. He died at Berkeley, in February, 1823, at the green old age of seventy-four: his remains lie in the chancel of the parish church of Berkeley. A marble statue by Sievier has been erected to his memory in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral; and another statue of him has been placed in a public building at Cheltenham. Five medals have been struck in honor of Jenner: three by the German nation; one by the surgeons of the British navy; and the fifth by the London Medical Society.
The First Vaccination—Dr. Jenner.
Dr. Jenner was endowed with a rare quality of mind, which it may be both interesting and beneficial to sketch. A singular originality of thought was his leading characteristic. He appeared to have naturally inherited what in others is the result of protracted study. He seemed to think from originality of perception alone, and not from induction. He arrived by a glance at inferences which would have occupied the laborious conclusions of most men. In human and animal pathology, in comparative anatomy, and in geology, he perceived facts and formed theories instantaneously, and with a spirit of inventive penetration which distanced the slower approaches of more learned men. But if his powers of mind were singularly great, the qualities which accompanied them were still more felicitous. He possessed the most singular amenity of disposition with the highest feeling, the rarest simplicity united to the highest genius. In the great distinction and the superior society to which his discovery introduced him, the native cast of his character was unchanged. Among the great monarchs of Europe, who, when in Great Britain, solicited his acquaintance, he was the unaltered Dr. Jenner of his birthplace. In the other moral points of his character, affection, friendship, beneficence, and liberality were pre-eminent In religion, his belief was equally remote from laxity and fanaticism; and he observed to an intimate friend, not long before his death, that he wondered not that the people were ungrateful to him for his discovery, but he was surprised that they were ungrateful to God for the benefits of which he was the humble means.[Back to Contents]