As purveyors of virus, too, the Establishment fell behind Walker’s Institution, and the Quakers’ pox had the preference among connoisseurs in the article. Jenner wrote to Moore, 5th March, 1816—
The Matter sent out by the National Vaccine Establishment is much complained of. I was applied to a few weeks since by the surgeons of the hospital at Gloucester for some Vaccine Matter, and their request was accompanied by the observation, “That after using thirty points sent from town, not a single pustule was produced.”
To account for such failures, it began to be reported that the virus was gradually losing its virtue in transit through many arms; but, continued Jenner—
Medical men are more expert than others in discovering causes without the fatigue of much thinking, and in the present instance they have all hit upon the wrong one—no great wonder. They attribute the lessened activity of the Matter, and its disposition to produce imperfect vesicles, to the great length of time which has elapsed since it was taken from the cow, and to the immense number of human subjects through whom it has passed. This is a conjecture, and I can destroy it by facts. The Matter may undergo a change that may render it unfit for further use by passing even from one individual to another; and this was as likely to happen in the first year of Vaccination as the twentieth. There are medical men who will take anything they can catch under the mere name of Vaccine Matter, or from pustules incorrect in character. It is from the spread of such Matter that the dissatisfaction of which I speak has arisen.[277]
When we refer to the record of the National Vaccine Establishment, there is little reason for surprise over its inefficiency. The House of Commons, having voted the endowment of £3,000 a-year, the Government committed the organisation of the Establishment and the administration of its funds to the heads of the Royal College of Physicians. How the £3,000 a-year was disposed of, came to light in 1822, when the accounts were published. The statement stood thus for 1821, representing what had gone on during the past twelve years—
| £ | £ | ||
| Physicians.— | Sir Henry Halford, Bart. | 100 | |
| Dr. Frampton | 100 | ||
| Dr. Thomas Hume | 100 | ||
| Dr. Charles Badham | 100 | ||
| Dr. R. Lloyd | 100 | ||
| —— | 500 | ||
| Surgeons.— | Sir Everard Home | 100 | |
| Sir W. Blizard | 100 | ||
| Henry Cline | 100 | ||
| —— | 300 | ||
| Registrar.— | James Hervey, M.D. | 300 | |
| Director.— | James Moore | 200 | |
| Secretary.— | C. Murray | 50 | |
| —— | 550 | ||
| Vaccinators.— | One at £150 | 150 | |
| Five ” 100 | 500 | ||
| One ” 75 | 75 | ||
| Six ” 50 | 300 | ||
| —— | 1,025 | ||
| Housekeeper | 40 | ||
| Messenger | 52 | ||
| Rent of furnished House, 18 Percy Street | 260 | ||
| —— | 352 | ||
| Printing, stationery, coal, candle, &c. | 183 | ||
| ——— | |||
| Total | £2,910 | ||
| ——— | |||
The accounts, though they revealed what was suspected, were widely denounced as scandalous. Parliament voted £3,000 a-year to extend vaccination among the poor, and here were a set of physicians and surgeons pocketing £800 of it, and muddling away the greater part of the remainder. They affected to regard vaccination as the deliverance of mankind from the scourge of smallpox, and yet they had not hesitated to appropriate the means provided for its diffusion! There was scarcely the pretence of work for wages. The Board met once a week, but the attendance was irregular, and at each member’s discretion. The eight hundred-a-yearers dropped in when convenient for gossip, and to ask what was doing. When set upon their defence, the argument was that the public were distrustful of vaccination, and that to inspire confidence it was necessary that the Establishment should have the benefit of the ostensible support of the College of Physicians and the College of Surgeons, for which the honorarium of £100 annually to each of their representatives was by no means excessive. In reply, it was pointed out that Dr. Walker, supported by voluntary contributions, collected with difficulty, and with less than the pay of many an artizan, had done more for vaccination in London and the country, and was more respected and trusted, than the Establishment with all the prestige of corporate authority.
As the result of many protests, the waste of public money was brought before the House of Commons by Joseph Hume. It was Mr. Hume’s distinction that, with strong good sense and invincible patience, he upheld the standard of honesty in public finance, holding that it was as wrong to defraud the nation as to defraud an individual; and that it was as foolish (not to say more wicked) to pay away the people’s money for nothing, as to throw away one’s own. The principle, so obviously indisputable, and yet so shamelessly violated in every department of the State, was enforced in detail by Mr. Hume with a persistency and success that has never been surpassed, and, I fear, never appreciated as deserved. He showed that patriotism is a practical virtue, instead of a sentimental pretext for public plunder, and taught honour to placemen to whom honour was unknown. Appropriately, therefore, Mr. Hume led the charge against the National Vaccine Establishment, and in 1827 the annual vote was reduced from £3,000 to £2,500, £300 of the £500 being saved by knocking off two useless physicians and one useless surgeon. Even then the extravagance that remained continued to excite indignation, the consequences of which are recorded in a “Report from the Select Committee on the Vaccine Board, with the Minutes of Evidence, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 28th August, 1833.” If space allowed, it would be easy to linger over the disclosures of this Committee. Suffice it to say, that Dr. George Gregory, of the Smallpox Hospital, held that the whole work of the Board might be done handsomely on £1,200 a-year. The Committee, however, shrank from such a severe exercise of economy, and recommended the provision of the following staff and expenses—
| Vaccinators at Stations in London (a sum which will probably admit of reduction) | £900 |
| Inspector } | { 200 |
| Registrar } Qualified on occasion to exchange duties | { 200 |
| Messenger | 55 |
| Offices, rent of | 100 |
| Incidental expenses | 150 |
| ——– | |
| Total | £1,605 |