[122] The Beauties of the Edinburgh Review, alias the Stink-Pot of Literature. By John Ring. London, 1807. P. 49.
[123] Treatise on the Cowpox, p. 520. London, 1801.
[CHAPTER IX.]
A DISHONOURABLE TRANSFORMATION.
Honour was abundant, but honour is windy fare, and Jenner had an eye for something more substantial. Among his papers we read—
While the vaccine discovery was progressive, the joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities, blended with the fond hope of enjoying independence and domestic peace and happiness, was often so excessive that, in pursuing my favourite subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie. It is pleasant to me to recollect that these reflections always ended in devout acknowledgments to that Being from whom this and all other mercies flow.[124]
But how was the fond hope of enjoying independence to be realised? The question was discussed by Jenner and his friends, and it was finally decided to apply to the House of Commons for a reward. But in order to go to Parliament it was necessary to have a good case, and Jenner’s case was open to various objections. The Inquiry, published in 1798, was by no means a manual of practice. Its prescription was Horsegrease Cowpox; but such Cowpox was neither producible nor accounted tolerable. Cowpox that did not originate in Horsegrease, Jenner had adjudged spurious; and yet such spurious Cowpox had been adopted by Pearson and Woodville, and under their influence had obtained extraordinary popularity. It was therefore by no means improbable that any claim for cash wherewith to enjoy independence might be seriously contested. In this strait, what was to be done? The question was a grave one, and called for a heroic solution. Resolved therefore, that Horsegrease Cowpox be dropped, and with it the use of escharotics for the subjugation of the pustules produced thereby. Absolute silence should thenceforth be his rule as to Horsegrease. So much for the negative position: the positive was more difficult. To claim Cowpox as his own, with the modes of its exhibition devised by Pearson, was an evolution full of hazard, but unless prepared to surrender “the fond hope of enjoying independence,” it must be effected. He had advantages. His name was associated with the new practice: even Pearson had done him homage: neither the medical profession nor the public were likely to study the Inquiry critically, or to trouble their heads over obscure details: Cowpox was to them Cowpox: he had the world’s ear; and opposition would be set down as the ordinary behaviour of envy toward success. Anyhow the transformation must be attempted: otherwise, farewell to dreams of financial independence.
To initiate this transformation, Jenner came to London, and in May, 1801, published a quarto pamphlet of twelve pages, entitled The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation.
First it was necessary to represent that his investigations had extended over many years—a fact of which there was no sign in the Inquiry, the evidence indeed being distinctly otherwise; and thus he shaped his statement—
My inquiry into the nature of the Cowpox commenced upwards of twenty-five years ago. My attention to this singular disease was first excited by observing that among those whom in the country I was frequently called upon to inoculate, many resisted every effort to give them the Smallpox. These patients I found had undergone a disease they called the Cowpox, contracted by milking Cows affected with a peculiar eruption on their teats. On inquiry, it appeared it had been known among the dairies from time immemorial, and that a vague opinion prevailed that it was a preventive of the Smallpox. This opinion I found was comparatively new among them; for all the older farmers declared they had no such idea in their early days—a circumstance that seemed easily to be accounted for, from my knowing that the common people were very rarely inoculated for the Smallpox till that practice was rendered general by the improved method introduced by the Suttons: so that the working people in the dairies were seldom put to the test of the preventive powers of the Cowpox.