Moreover, as the dates prove, the interval was brief between the introduction of inoculation and its authoritative acceptance. The girl Montagu was privately inoculated in April, 1721, Dr. Keith’s boy on the 11th of May, the Newgate experiment took place on the 9th of August, a variety of experiments followed, and lastly the Princesses Amelia and Caroline were inoculated on the 19th of April, 1722—sharp work for one year. There was not time for opposition. The citadel of social approval was carried with a rush. As a contemporary observed—
I could not but take notice with what united force and zeal the practice was pushed on upon the life and reputation it received from its admission to the Royal Palace; all pens and weekly papers at work to recommend and publish it; and it was rightly judged, then or never was the time; and had it not been for some unlucky miscarriages, the Inoculators would have had the best chance for full practice and full pockets that ever fell into the hands of so small a set of men.[27]
The royal approval was assiduously worked, and there were not wanting hints that to question the goodness of inoculation was equivalent to disloyalty; and thus we find the Rev. E. Massey protesting in a letter to Mr. Maitland—
I wish the Doctor more candour toward those who differ from him than to insinuate that they are guilty of high treason, and a better argument for this practice than the cry, Inoculation! and King George for ever![28]
Bad reasons are often advanced against bad policy, and whilst it is probable that some silly things were uttered against inoculation, yet I think every candid mind would be impressed with the moderation of Maitland’s chief adversaries. There was Isaac Massey, for instance, apothecary to Christ’s Hospital, who published several pamphlets in opposition, wherein candour and good sense are throughout conspicuous. He defined—
Inoculation as an art of giving the smallpox to persons in health, who might otherwise have lived many years, and perhaps to a very old age without it, whereby some unhappily come to an untimely death.[29]
He objected to the exaggerated dangers of smallpox wherewith the Inoculators operated on the public fears, and appealed to his own experience in Christ’s Hospital—
Where there are generally near 600 children, the nurseries at Ware and Hertford constantly filling the places of those who go off. It hath sometimes happened that great numbers have been down of the smallpox, and ’tis but seldom that the House is free, or not long so: yet I daresay, and Sir Hans Sloane, I presume, will say so too, that in twenty years there have not died above five or six at most of the distemper, and in the last eight years there died but one.[30]
So lightly did he regard the peril of smallpox to the young that he delivered this challenge—