Vaccination was accepted as a revelation, and diffused as a religion, and was almost everywhere received gladly. We have to bear in mind, however, that the way had been made straight for it by the practice of inoculation with smallpox; which practice, after a struggle prolonged over many years, had become an established part of medical art, and was only limited in its application by the inconvenience and risks that attended it. The promise of the primitive vaccinators was, that the security which resulted from inoculation with smallpox was to be had from inoculation with cowpox, with absolute certainty, absolute safety, and absolute permanence. The argument was, that since no one could have smallpox twice (however slight the attack), and as cowpox was a mild form of smallpox, it sufficed to be inoculated with cowpox to be safe from smallpox through life; and if only the infliction of cowpox were made universal, smallpox would be extirpated. Such was the plausible doctrine; so plausible that it had only to be stated to command assent; whilst so great was the elation over the discovery (as much, perhaps, for deliverance from inoculation with smallpox as from smallpox itself) that it was accounted a sacred duty to diffuse its benefits over the whole earth. Greater good on easier terms it was difficult to imagine. With a scratch of a needle one of the worst penalties attached to over-crowding, to filth, and to ill-living, might be avoided and done away with for ever.
How pleasant are such sugared lies,
Deceiving by their sweetness!
The first cowpox missionaries were Dr. Marshall and Dr. Walker. £100 was teased out of the Admiralty, and £100 out of the War Office toward their expenses, and placed on board the Endymion, they proceeded, on 1st July, 1800, to the Mediterranean. At Gibraltar, Minorca, and Malta, they vaccinated soldiers and sailors, first operating on orphans and foundlings to give the gallant fellows courage. Then Walker accompanied Sir Ralph Abercrombie to Egypt, from whence, after a variety of adventures, he returned to London to serve as domestic apostle, and vex Jenner for the remainder of his life. Marshall proceeded to Sicily and Naples. In Palermo, in the preceding year, 1799, there had been an epidemic, in which, it was said, 8,000 had perished, and Marshall appeared on the scene as a belated messenger of salvation. At Naples he had a cordial reception from the wretched Ferdinand IV. and his wretched court, who, with general indifference or enmity to what was good, were ready to show themselves gracious toward cowpox. Marshall went through the customary performances of the variolous test and the exposure of the vaccinated to infection; and without further ado an hospital was opened, and all who would be saved from smallpox were entreated to hasten and receive the new inoculation.
It was not unusual [wrote Marshall to Jenner] to see in the morning a procession of men, women, and children, conducted through the streets by a priest carrying a cross, coming to the hospital to be inoculated. By such popular means, the practice met with no opposition; and the common people expressed themselves as certain that it was a blessing sent from Heaven, though discovered by one heretic and practised by another.
When Marshall was at Gibraltar, Lord Keith issued the following memorandum to the fleet—
H.M. Ship Foudroyant,
Gibraltar Bay, 19th October, 1800.
Any soldiers, seamen, or marines in the Fleet who may not have had the Smallpox, and wish to avoid that dreadful malady, may, by application to Dr. Marshall, on board the flag-ship, be inoculated with the Cowpox, which, without pain or illness, or requiring particular diet or state of body, or leaving any marks, effectually excludes all possibility of the patient ever being affected with the Smallpox.
By command of the Vice-Admiral, Philip Beaver.
To the respective Captains of the Fleet.
I may observe, in passing, that there was little delay in introducing vaccination to the British navy. Sir Gilbert Blane was urgent, Earl Spencer, first Lord of the Admiralty, acquiescent, and Dr. Trotter, physician to the fleet, enthusiastic. So early as 9th December, 1800, Trotter was prophesying—