Ring delivered his mind unequivocally. Walker was an imposter, and the London Vaccine Institution prospered by his frauds—
There is a Society in this Metropolis [he wrote], falsely calling itself the Royal Jennerian Society, which has been collecting subscriptions to a considerable amount under that assumed name; and thus collecting money under false pretences.
An eminent physician speaking of this Society and its successful state, called it a successful villany; and villany is not the less villany because it is successful.
It has also been organising a complete system of quackery, by granting diplomas to persons totally ignorant of the first principles of the medical profession, which will add to the present host of empirics.
No one can now pass along the streets without being annoyed with the inscription, Vaccination Gratis under the sanction of the London Vaccine Institution in one pane of glass, Macassar Oil in a second, and Patent Blacking in a third. In short Vaccination is now quite a drug.
These were words of envy and malice, and came with odious inconsistency from the spokesman of Jenner, who had instructed and encouraged his acquaintances, male and female, to practise vaccination. We may, however, take Ring’s evidence as to Walker’s activity in London—
Dr. Walker glories in his chemical, galenical, pharmaceutical, and dentrifical inoculators; and boasts that they exceed in number those of any other vaccine institution; but he glories in his shame. Non numerentur, sed ponderentur. They are springing up under every pestle and mortar, and barber’s pole, like mushrooms in a hot-bed, from Hyde-Park Corner to Whitechapel, and from Whitechapel to Blackwall. It is the duty of every regular practitioner to expose such imposters, and to encourage such exposure. It is, in fact, the rescuing of life from fraudulent and rapacious hands.
One of his inoculators is Mr. Campbell, who cures all sorts of incurable diseases with Elephants’ Milk. He says he recently sent 20,000 bottles to Russia at 11s. each. He also sells the Milk in pills at 2s. 9d. a box. The poor have the Milk at half-price; and strict secresy is preserved.
In Walker’s Plan for 1814, it appears that he grants his diplomas to those who are not, as well as to those who are, of the medical profession, and that Inoculators in the country are requested and authorised to put up a board with the following inscription, Protection from Smallpox under the sanction of the London Vaccine Institution. Then is to follow the name of the farrier, cobbler, barber, barber-surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, tooth-drawer, druggist, chemist, oil-man, cheesemonger, drysalter, or grocer, who dispenses the blessing of Vaccination gratuitously.
The motley crew thus appointed are directed to make an Annual Return of the numbers inoculated by them in order to swell Dr. Walker’s list; and such inoculators are not in general very nice in their calculations. Many of them will, in all probability, like other quacks, pretend to a hundred times more than they really perform.