[58] Kirkpatrick’s Analysis of Inoculation, p. 359.
[CHAPTER VII.]
TRIUMPH OF INOCULATION.
It having come to pass, according to the boast of Dr. Kirkpatrick, that inoculation was regarded as “the most salutary practice ever discovered for restraining a very loathsome and destroying disorder, which it had nearly expunged from the catalogue of mortal diseases,” it was the aim of physicians and patients to reduce the trouble and hazard of the operation to the lowest terms possible. In the words of Dr. Jenner, “There was bleeding till the blood was thin, purging till the body was wasted to a skeleton, and starving on vegetable diet to keep it so;” and practitioners who promised to mitigate these rigours, placed themselves in the line of popularity and prosperity.
Among distinguished easy inoculators was a family named Sutton—“the Suttons” being a familiar name a century ago. Dr. Robert Sutton practised surgery and pharmacy at Debenham, in Suffolk, and went into inoculation with such energy that between 1757 and 1767 he operated on 2514 patients. His son, Robert, set up as inoculator at Bury St. Edmunds, where he did a large business; but a second son, Daniel, was the genius of the household. He had been acting as assistant to Mr. Bumstead at Oxford, and returned to his father in 1763 enthusiastic over a new plan of inoculation whereby the time of preparation was to be shortened, whilst the patients were to live in the open air. Old Sutton showed no favour for the projected innovation, whereon Daniel opened an inoculating house on his own account at Ingatestone, in Essex, advertising himself as inoculator on a new, safe, and sure method. The speculation answered. In 1764 he took 2000 guineas, and in 1765 his receipts were £6300. His fame spread throughout the country, and so many resorted to him that lodgings were scarcely to be had in and around Ingatestone. His practice in Kent was also extensive, and he was obliged to employ assistants. To crown his enterprise, he kept a parson—the Rev. Robert Houlton, to puff his skill and success. According to Houlton, the business of Daniel Sutton during three years was as follows—
| Inoculated in 1764, | 1629 |
| ” 1765, | 4347 |
| ” 1766, | 7816 |
| ——— | |
| 13,792 |
to which number was added 6000 inoculated by Sutton’s assistants, making a total of 20,000, without, said Houlton, a single death.[59]
Sutton was denounced as a quack, and if to reserve as one’s own, and to traffic in what is proclaimed to be for the common advantage of mankind, constitutes a quack, Sutton was one. Nevertheless, he was successful, and his success begot so much jealousy that he was indicted at the Chelmsford quarter sessions, but acquitted with the thanks of the grand jury for the lesson he had taught the Faculty.
Much ingenuity was exercised in ferreting out Sutton’s secret. His secret, so far as it was anything, was an open one; and supposing it necessary to infect men’s blood with variolous pus, and then to operate for their recovery, there would be much to say for Sutton’s procedure. His patients were obliged to go through a strict preparatory regimen for a fortnight, during which every kind of animal food, with the exception of milk, and all fermented liquors and spices were forbidden. Fruit of all sorts was allowed, unless on days when purges were taken. In the course of a fortnight a powder was thrice administered at bed-time, and a dose of salts on the succeeding morning. When the days of preparation were accomplished, the patient was taken to the inoculating house, where in the public room was found an array of people in various stages of smallpox. From one of these sufferers, the operator selected a pustule to his mind, opened it with his lancet, and, turning to the patient to be poxed, raised the cuticle on the outer part of his arm with the moist lancet, and pressed it down with his finger. This was the entire operation: no plaster or bandage was applied: and from that moment the patient was pronounced proof against smallpox, even if he should lie in bed with one suffering from the disease. Of course there remained the variolous affection to be dealt with. The regimen of preparation was continued unchanged, and a pill was taken nightly until the fever came on. None were allowed to rest in bed, except for sleep, but had to walk abroad and enjoy fresh air, even in winter weather. If a patient was too sick to go alone, he was supported by attendants; and when the fever was at its height, he was encouraged to drink copiously of cold water.