The Prime Minister, Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth), informed the House that he had taken the King’s pleasure on the contents of the petition, and that his Majesty recommended it strongly to the consideration of Parliament. It was referred to a committee, of which Admiral Berkeley, a zealous believer in Jenner, was appointed chairman. The points to which the committee chiefly directed their inquiries were—
I.—The utility of the discovery itself.
II.—The right of the petitioner to the discovery.
III.—The sacrifices of the petitioner in making the discovery.
As an investigation the work of the Committee was illusory. The points were decided in the petitioner’s favour from the outset. There was no opposition. Dr. Moseley, Mr. Birch, and Dr. Rowley, who became active opponents of the New Inoculation, were summoned, but the matter was new to them; they had not had time to collect evidence and formulate conclusions: a rite that was to protect for a lifetime and to annihilate smallpox, announced in 1798, was to be adjudicated upon in 1802! On the other hand, Jenner’s friends were influential and active, and used the opportunity to parade their whole strength in his favour. The medical testimony especially was unreserved and enthusiastic.
Dr. James Sims, president of the London Medical Society, laid before the Committee a unanimous resolution of the Society in Jenner’s favour. He said he was at first adverse to Vaccine Inoculation, but his confidence in it was increasing every hour. It introduced no other disease to the human frame, whilst it made an end of the possibility of smallpox, a disease that proved fatal to one in six of those it attacked. He had never heard of Cowpox before the publication of The Inquiry, and regarded the discovery therein communicated as the most useful ever made in medicine. If Jenner had kept and traded on his secret, he might have become the richest man in the kingdom.
Sir Gilbert Blane related how the New Inoculation had been introduced to the Navy. He had had the men on board the Kent, man-of-war, inoculated with cowpox, and then with smallpox, and not one took the latter disease. Of every thousand deaths in the country, smallpox was accountable for ninety-five. Taking London as the standard, 45,000 must perish annually from smallpox in the United Kingdom. As soon as the preventive discovered by Jenner became universal that large mortality would cease.
Dr. Lettsom, a popular physician, a member of the Society of Friends, and an enthusiastic supporter of Jenner, said he had paid much attention to smallpox statistics. Taking London and the out-parishes as containing nearly 1,000,000 inhabitants, he calculated that eight a day, or 3000 annually died of smallpox. Allowing Great Britain and Ireland to have a population of 12,000,000, that would give a mortality of not less than 36,000 per annum from smallpox. He had reason to conclude that about 60,000 persons had undergone the New Inoculation up to date. He did not think that the genuine cowpox when inoculated could ever prove fatal. Had Jenner kept his remedy secret he might have derived immense pecuniary profits from it, as did the Suttons by their improved practice of variolous inoculation.
Asked whether he had known any inoculated with smallpox subsequently contract smallpox, he replied that he had two relatives inoculated who afterwards had smallpox, and one of them died. He had recently attended two families, in each of which a child inoculated was laid up a year after the operation with smallpox.
Dr. Woodville, forgiving Jenner’s evil treatment, came, like a good Friend, to bear witness to the new practice. He had learnt to prefer vaccine to variolous inoculation at the Hospital. He had, up to January, 1802, operated with cowpox on 7,500 patients. About half of them had been subjected to the Variolous Test with satisfactory results.