Those who take success as the test of truth may say that Birch was unsuccessful in his contention; but he was not unsuccessful. Vaccination in London was discredited, and the imposture abated, as the report of the College of Surgeons in 1807 attests. Where retained, it was not so much as a preventive as a mitigator of smallpox, its advocates being content to occupy the safe position that it made milder a disease the severity of which was unknown.
Birch died in 1815. His sister reprinted his papers against vaccination (from which have come my citations[162]), and erected a monument to his memory in St. Margaret’s, Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street, the inscription on which is noteworthy.
SACRED
To the Memory of
JOHN BIRCH, Esquire,
Many years an eminent Surgeon of this Metropolis;
who died on the 3rd February, 1815,
Aged 69 Years,
and whose earthly remains lie deposited under the Pulpit and Desk.
Jenner recognised Birch as a dangerous antagonist, and behaved toward him with his usual meanness. Writing from Berkeley, 11th October, 1812, to Moore in London, where smallpox was prevalent, he observed—
I have not heard lately whether the fury of the Smallpox is abated in town. I trust it is. Had I power to exercise vaccination as I liked, in one fortnight this dismal work of death should entirely cease. What a sad wicked fellow is that Birch! Moseley I hear nothing of now, but Birch is still employing his agents to spread the pestilence.[163]