Imperfect Vaccination,
Instances of Smallpox after Vaccination,
Supposed bad consequences,
Publications against the practice,
Popular prejudices.
The report of the Edinburgh College of Physicians disowned acquaintance with Vaccination, the practice being entirely in the hands of surgeons and other practitioners—
With a view, however, to publish their conviction of the immense benefits which have been, and which will in future be derived to the world, from Inoculation for the Cowpox, they had spontaneously and unanimously elected Dr. Jenner an honorary Fellow of their College, a mark of distinction which they very rarely confer, and which they confine almost exclusively to Foreign Physicians of the first eminence.
The report of the College of Surgeons, dated 3rd March, 1807, left nothing for the Jennerians to desire. The Edinburgh surgeons were satisfied from their own experience that Vaccination constituted a permanent security from Smallpox, and they had observed no ill consequences from the practice. Vaccination commenced in Edinburgh in 1801, and was now so general in the city—
That for two or three years past, Smallpox has been reckoned rather a rare occurrence, even among the lower order of the inhabitants, unless in some particular quarters about twelve months ago. Among the higher ranks of the inhabitants the disease is unknown.
Rare, unless in some quarters about a year ago! We turn to the report of the Edinburgh Dispensary for 1805, and there we read—
The loathsome disease has unfortunately been very prevalent in several quarters of the city.
And this coincidently with extensive Vaccination to which apparently there was no active opposition! We have also to remember in this connection the statement of Professor Alexander Monro in 1765, that “the inhabitants of Scotland generally have Smallpox in their infancy or childhood; very few adults being seen in this disease”; and that in Edinburgh, with conditions strongly favourable to Smallpox, the mortality from the disease was on an average little more than a hundred a year. The Edinburgh physicians knew nothing practically of Vaccination, and we see how the Surgeons, who did know, shaped their evidence.
The Dublin College of Physicians echoed the fashionable opinion “that Cowpox Inoculation was safe, and fully answered its purpose.” They were “willing to allow that doubtful cases had occurred of Smallpox after Vaccination, but on minute investigation, these supposed instances originated generally in misrepresentation, or the difficulty of discriminating between Smallpox and other eruptions.” Rather awkwardly, seeing how the opposite opinion was in vogue, they professed their faith in Variolous Inoculation—
The Smallpox is rendered a much less formidable disease in Ireland by the frequency of Inoculation for it, than in other parts of His Majesty’s dominions, where prejudices against Inoculation have prevailed. Hence parents, not unnaturally, object to the introduction of a new disease, in the shape of Vaccination, preferring to trust to the practice with the mildness and safety of which they are well acquainted.