Along with the prohibition of Variolous Inoculation in 1840, Parliament passed an Act for the provision of Vaccination out of the poor-rate. A scheme had been formulated and petitioned for by the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association in 1838, with the expectation that the Government might be induced to create a multitude of places for “regularly educated vaccinators, with suitable salaries, in districts sufficiently numerous to embrace the whole of the poor population of the country.” The House of Commons being of a thrifty turn in those days, did not however favour such a magnificent development of place and pay under the National Vaccine Establishment, and disposed of the project by referring the provision of vaccination to the parochial authorities, who might be trusted to do what was needful with due regard to economy. In every union, and in every parish that was not in union, it was provided that there should be one or more medical practitioners appointed by the Guardians for the gratuitous vaccination of the inhabitants, with remuneration from the rates according to the number operated upon.[278] This accession to their burdens met with anything but welcome from the ratepayers in general. Contracts for vaccination at so much per head were submitted for competition, and those who accepted the rite at the public expense were spoken of as paupers, and in some places had their names published to “shame them.” To remove the stigma of pauperism from the parish prophylaxy, an Act was passed in 1841 in which it was declared that public vaccination was not of the nature of “parochial relief, alms, or charitable allowance,” and did not therefore deprive the recipient of any “right or privilege,” or subject him “to any disability or disqualification whatsoever.”[279]
The reports of the National Vaccine Establishment from 1841 to 1850 continued to be of the same perfunctory character. They usually started with a profession of confidence in vaccination, after the fashion of Mrs. Micawber’s resolution never to desert Micawber; the signature to which declaration by the President and Senior Censor of the Royal College of Physicians, and the President of the Royal College of Surgeons being accompanied with a douceur of £100 to each. For example, we read—
1841.—Smallpox has prevailed epidemically with considerable severity since our last Report; but we do not abate an iota of our confidence in Vaccination as the best protective against its malignant influence.
1845.—The unabated confidence with which we continue to regard Vaccination, etc., etc.
1847.—Nothing has occurred to diminish our confidence in the protective influence of Vaccination. It is true that Smallpox has now and then reappeared; and lately to an extent which has called for additional efforts on the part of all the officers of the Establishment; but we regard such recurrence as due to the ordinary operations of those periodical influences which give to the disease its epidemic character; and in some localities, as in Ireland, to that distress with which contagious diseases are so invariably associated.
The reporters apparently forgot that according to the doctrine of which they were the representatives, vaccination excluded the possibility of smallpox under whatever circumstances of atmosphere, filth, or privation. If only effective in the absence of the ordinary conditions of smallpox, wherein consisted the benefit of the rite?
Ceely of Aylesbury in 1839, and Badcock of Brighton in 1840, succeeded in inoculating cows with smallpox, and the resulting virus was described as cowpox, and used for vaccination far and wide. Apparently the procedure was not approved by the Vaccine Establishment, for we read in the report—
1841.—The matter we employ is obtained by succession from the original virus communicated by Dr. Jenner himself, and that we find is as effectual as ever. We may be excused therefore, we hope, if we discourage an incautious dissemination of matter obtained from new sources, which has not stood the test of ample experience.
The original virus communicated by Jenner himself! What was it? When the National Vaccine Establishment was instituted in 1808, the virus in circulation in London was accepted as stock, and it certainly had several origins. It was cowpox as discovered by Pearson; it was horsegrease cowpox and horsepox as derived from Jenner; and there is reason to believe it was smallpox from Woodville and others. The claim, therefore, to the possession of a specific variety of matter communicated by Jenner was fictitious.
Again, through the recurrent failure of vaccination to avert smallpox, the Board had to discountenance the assertion that their virus had lost its virtue through prolonged transmission—a reason which led some to prefer the fresh variolous stocks of Ceely and Badcock—