The New Inoculation, as it was called, grew in favour daily. Woodville and Pearson did the real work of publicity and promotion—Pearson especially. Within seven months, January to August, 1799, they performed 2000 inoculations. In the Philosophical Journal, August, 1799, Pearson observed—
In Scotland the New Inoculation has not been less successful. Dr. Anderson, of Leith, informs me that he has inoculated above 80 persons; that Dr. Duncan has begun the practice in Edinburgh and that it has been introduced in Dundee, Paisley, and Dalkeith.
Nor did Pearson limit his efforts to his native land. He wrote—
In the course of the same year, 1799, I extended the dissemination of the vaccine matter to Germany, for the Princess Louisa at Berlin, to Hanover, Vienna, Geneva, Lisbon, Paris, and Boston, and into the British Army through Mr. Keats.
Jenner regarded much of this activity with a jealous eye: it did not sufficiently make for his glory. He was anxious, fretful, helpless. “It is impossible for me, single-handed, to combat all my adversaries,” was his whine. “I am beset on all sides with snarling fellows, and so ignorant withal that they know no more of the disease they write about than the animals which generate it.” In order to keep his name to the fore, he published a second pamphlet in the spring of 1799, in which are several details of biographical interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] Reports of a Series of Inoculations for the Variolæ Vaccinæ or Cowpox. London, 1799.
[107] J. C. Wachsel in London Medical Repository, 1819, p. 257.
[108] Examination of Report of Committee of House of Commons, 1802.
[109] Further Observations on the Variolæ Vaccinæ, 1799.