FOOTNOTES:
[98] Such timely remedies were solutions of sulphate of zinc or sulphate of copper—a hint for those in quest of antidotes for Vaccination.
[99] Remarks on Certain Medical Principles. London, 1882.
[100] Baron’s Life of Jenner, vol. i. p. 380.
[CHAPTER III.]
JENNER IN 1798.
Jenner, with his wife and daughter, left Berkeley for London on 24th April, 1798, in order to see the Inquiry through the press. He remained in London until 14th July, and failed, if he tried, to induce any inoculator to substitute cowpox for smallpox. In the Jenner legend, it is usual to find some touching remarks on this trip to town: genius unrecognised: truth turned from every door: the great soul abiding in patience and courage invincible. Dates, however, are again merciless. The Inquiry was not in the booksellers’ hands until the end of June, and, within a fortnight after publication, Jenner was on his way to Berkeley. There was no occasion for the virtues specified.
Among Jenner’s acquaintance was Henry Cline, teacher of surgery in St. Thomas’s Hospital; and with Cline he left some virus in a quill that he had taken from the arm of Hannah Excell, at Berkeley on 5th April. Cline had a patient, a child named Richard Weller, with an affection of the hip-joint, and intending to create an issue by way of counter-irritation, he inoculated the hip with Excell’s virus, and thus described the experiment in a letter to Jenner—
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 2nd August, 1798.
The Cowpox experiment has succeeded admirably. The child sickened on the seventh day; and the fever, which was moderate, subsided on the eleventh day. The inflammation extended to about four inches diameter, and then gradually subsided without having been attended with pain or other inconvenience. The ulcer was not large enough to contain a pea; therefore, I have not converted it into an issue as I intended. I have since inoculated him with smallpox in three places, which were slightly inflamed on the third day, and then subsided.