The income of the Institution in 1826 was £620 15s., and the expenditure £715 12s., leaving a deficit of £94 17s.
The figures are interesting, for they afford some idea of the extent of London vaccination during a quarter of a century. The operations of the Vaccine Institution lay chiefly among the poor—the vast majority in London as in every city; and if we allow that in the course of five-and-twenty years, 350,000, in a population of upwards of 1,000,000 in the flux of life and death, were operated on, we give a liberal estimate in favour of vaccination. That even so many could have much effect on the prevalence of smallpox (except for aggravation) is incredible, unless the vicarious action of vaccination be seriously asserted. Turning over Walker’s report it is amusing to observe how any abatement in London smallpox was attributed to vaccination, and any increase to its neglect—an ingenuous exemplification of the fable of the Fly and the Wheel.
The appointed inoculators of the Institution were a numerous body—250 names and addresses are given in one of the Reports. They were chiefly London tradesmen with a taste for doing what they thought “good.” As vaccination came to be regarded as professional work, these “unqualified practitioners” gave cause for offence, but Walker held stoutly to his opinion, which he shared with Jenner, that vaccination might be performed by any man or woman. In Walker’s words, “It is easier to perform the whole business of vaccination than it is to thread a needle—yea, it is easier.”
The annexation of the remains of the Royal Jennerian Society by Walker was much disliked by Jenner and his associates; and when the revived enterprise showed signs of prosperity, their dislike developed to open enmity, and John Ring’s services as bravo and satirist were called into requisition. He first tried his hand, anonymously, in a volume of doggerel, published in 1815, entitled The Vaccine Scourge,[185] in which Walker is represented as singing—
I am a jolly beggar,
From Cockermouth I came;
I do pretend to be a Friend,
John Walker is my name;
And a-begging we will go, will go, will go,