It is a curious story, and stands in broad contrast to the rough and ready practice of Turkey, and of many inoculators in England and elsewhere. Dr. Waterhouse adds—
There were a considerable number of persons in Boston to whom smallpox could not be communicated by inoculation. In some the operation was repeated two, three, and four times with fresh matter. Several of these have had the disease severely since in the natural way, and some have died of it.
France was slow to accept inoculation. After its introduction in 1723, about thirty years elapsed without any serious movement in its favour, when Voltaire, Diderot, and their set began to recommend the practice, which had the merit of being English and disliked by those who held change and improvement in aversion. La Condamine read an eloquent paper on the advantages of inoculation before the Academy of Sciences; and Turgot, the ardent and sagacious lover of his kind, procured the inoculation of a child in Paris, 1st April, 1755; which was followed on 14th May by a young man, named Chastellux, submitting himself to the operation in the interest of the common welfare. Then Dr. Hosty was sent to London to investigate and report, and on his return issued these statements—
1. That out of 463 cases inoculated in the London Hospital, only one had been unsuccessful; whereas in the Smallpox Hospital nearly one in four had died.
2. That Mr. Ranby, principal surgeon to his majesty, had inoculated 1600 persons, and Mr. Bell 903, without the loss of one.
3. That to form a just comparison between the fatality of natural and artificial smallpox, it is only necessary to visit the London Smallpox Hospital and then the Inoculation Hospital: the difference between the two is so remarkable that the most incredulous must be convinced.
4. Lastly, with respect to the asserted insemination of other diseases with inoculated smallpox: no instance of the kind has ever been produced. Persons have been inoculated with variolous matter taken from patients afflicted with venereal disease, yet they have received no infection save that of smallpox only.
It would be superfluous to deal with the fallacies involved in these statements: they served to satisfy those who were disposed to be satisfied, and inoculation became the fashion among the scientific and enlightened. Dr. Tronchin, a well-known inoculator, was summoned from Geneva to Paris in 1756 to operate upon the children of the Duke of Orleans, and his success was pronounced decisive. Nevertheless inoculation did not extend beyond people of leisure and culture, and in 1763 an outbreak of smallpox in Paris made an end of the practice. An inquiry was instituted by the authorities, and the evidence left no doubt that the epidemic had been diffused, if it did not originate, with the artificially poxed; and inoculation was thenceforth prohibited in Paris. Any citizen who was resolved to have the induced disease had to retire to country quarters.
Here we may observe that the confidence of the inoculator was grounded on the assumption that whoever had once passed through smallpox, whether natural or artificial, could never again contract the disease. Nevertheless the inoculated did contract the disease, and the disaster was uniformly accounted for as due to some imperfection in the inoculation. There were also instances of smallpox after smallpox, but these, too, were discredited; the first smallpox could not have been smallpox, but chickenpox, measles, or some other eruptive disorder. There was a conspicuous confutation of these evasions in the case of Louis XV. He had smallpox unquestionably in his 14th year, and of unquestionable smallpox he died in 1774 in his 64th year. Notwithstanding, the assertion was perpetuated that there was no possibility of smallpox after smallpox, and it was only when it became necessary to maintain the credit of vaccination that the facts were admitted; and in this form—Smallpox after vaccination is no more common or extraordinary than smallpox after smallpox—a falsehood on the back of a former falsehood.
We have seen under what safeguards inoculation was practised in Boston, and now we shall turn to Geneva and discover how all the American precautions were set at naught in that city with apparent impunity. The details are from a letter of the Council of Geneva, dated 24th December, 1791, addressed to Dr. Haygarth in answer to his inquiries and suggestions. Des Gouttes, secretary to the Geneva Syndic, wrote—