One day Mr. Cook, an eminent Turkey merchant, having seen the persons engrafted in Newgate, and having fully considered their incisions and eruptions, he openly declared they were the very same as he had observed in Turkey, having seen a great many instances; and that we might be assured they would never again be infected with smallpox.
Dr. Mead suggested another experiment—that cotton dipped in pox should be inserted in the nostrils; and a young woman sentenced to death received her life on condition of submitting to the operation. Here we have Mead’s own account of the transaction—
A learned author has given an account of the practice of sowing smallpox, as they call it, known to the Chinese above three hundred years, which is this. They take the skins of some of the dried pustules, which are fallen from the body, and put them into a porcelain bottle, stopping the mouth of it very close with wax. When they have a mind to infect any one, they make up three or four of these skins, putting between them with one grain of musk into a tent with cotton, which they put up the nostrils.
I myself have had an opportunity of making an experiment to this purpose. For, when in the year 1721, by order of his Sacred Majesty, both for the sake of his own family, and of his subjects, a trial was to be made upon seven condemned malefactors, whether or not the smallpox could safely be communicated by inoculation; I easily obtained leave to make the Chinese experiment in one of them. There was among those who were chosen out to undergo the operation, a young girl of eighteen years of age. I put into her nostrils a tent, wetted with matter taken out of ripe pustules. The event answered: for she, in like manner with the others, who were infected by incisions made in the skin, fell sick, and recovered; but suffered much more than they did, being, immediately after the poison was received into the nose, miserably tormented with sharp pains in her head, and a fever, which never left her till the eruption of the pustules.[17]
Finally, says Maitland—
On the 6th of September they were all dismissed to their several counties and habitations. The thing has been successful on all the five, far beyond my expectation, considering their age, habit of body, and circumstances; and it has perfectly answered Dr. Timoni’s account of the practice, and also the experience of all who have seen it in Turkey.[18]
So Maitland asserted, but others were of a different opinion. Dr. Wagstaffe, who visited the patients in Newgate regularly, maintained in a letter addressed to Dr. Freind—
Upon the whole, Sir, in the cases mentioned, there was nothing like the smallpox, either in symptoms, appearances, advance of the pustules, or the course of the distemper. And it would puzzle any one to conceive how it is possible that smallpox can ever be prevented by inoculation. With the exception of one of the men, the girl who had cotton dipped in matter thrust up her nostrils, had as fair a smallpox as any in the place.[19]
Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Steigertahl, physician to the King, to test the matter farther, “joined purses,” and had one of the women inoculated in Newgate sent to Hertford, where smallpox of a severe form was prevalent, to lie in bed with smallpox patients. This she did with impunity; but it was reasonably objected that many who were not inoculated did so likewise and escaped without harm.
The Newgate experiment, of course, caused great excitement, and induced many repetitions in town and country. The Princess of Wales was especially alive to the importance of “the great discovery;” and for her additional satisfaction, six charity children, belonging to the parish of St. James, were inoculated; and all but one “took” and did well; the exception being due to the craft of the child, who, for the sake of the reward, concealed the fact of having had smallpox.