Jenner and Vaccination : a Strange Chapter of Medical History / By
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
^^^^^ 5^ JEiNNER AND VACCINATION: ^ Strange Chapter jof glebkal Pistorg. BY CHARLES CREIGHTON, M.D. Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis.—Virgil : y^iieid, ix. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 18S9. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. PREFACE. PIE object of this book is to make clear to general readers the steps in the rise and acceptance of Jenner's doctrine and practice of vaccine inoculation. The assent of the profession both at home and abroad having been given within the first two or three years, the history has been followed most closely for those years. The subsequent establishment, endowment, and enforcement of the doctrine and practice are narrated with less minuteness in the concluding chapters. The history being a somewhat strange one, it has been thought desirable to authenticate the facts by full refer- ences. The events herein narrated and criticised are remote enough from our own day to have become fitting matter for historical treatment. In medicine new de- velopments of theory and practice are so closely bound up with the legitimate professional standing and repute of their authors that it is always a matter of delicacy to subject them to contemporary criticism of the more rigorous kind. But there need be no such reserve in dealing with medical affairs that lie well within the limits of history. The medical profession of this 111 PREFACE. country, it is true, has offered no great encouragement to those who would touch even the history with a hand of criticism. But the pubh'c can hardly be ex- pected to share that pious feeling so far as concerns a practice that is brought home to every one by the law ; the historical origins, or the roots of authority, may here be laid bare without compunction. In most other affairs of the past it is not only permitted to historians, but even expected of them, that they leave no stone unturned. Technical language has been avoided as far as pos- sible, and has, indeed, been little needed in dealing with a subject which is a commonplace of every house- hold. Some of the points the author has been enabled to pass over briefly with a reference to a former book written for his own profession. He has been enabled also to curtail where his immediate precursor in the history of vaccination, Mr. William White, has been most copious. Those who are acquainted with Mr. White's able and accurate historical inquiries will find that the present work for the most part covers new ground. London, February^ 1889. — — —A CONTENTS. CHAPTER T. jenner's scientific credit before vaccination. jenner and John Hunter. — Banks' and Cook's Expeditions. — Hunter's Letters. —Hibernation. —The Cuckoo. —Paper for the Royal Society. —Elected Fellow. —Theory of Cuckoo's Instinct. —Jenner's Origin- ality. —A Wondrous Tale. — Imaginative Anatomy of Cuckoo's Back. —Accepted by Ornithologists pp. 1-18. CHAPTER II. THE POX, THE SMALLPOX, AND THE COWPOX. The Folklore of Cowpox.—The Legend a Localized One. —Origin of the Legend. —Benjamin Jesty. —A Second Theme for the Royal Society. — Origin of the Name " Smallpox."— Origin of the Name "Pox." Why the Pox so Called. —Why Cowpox so Called. —The Legend to be made Scientific. —Jenner's Notions get Wind. —His Paper Returned by the Royal Society. —His Original Theory. —The Evidence.— Sham Test. —Cowpox not Fully Desci-ibed. — Implied Likeness to Smallpox. — Called " Smallpox of the Cow."—No Reasons Given. Facts Suppressed.—James Phipps Tested. —Significance of Royal Society's Action ........ pp. 19-48. CHAPTER in. jenner's " INQUIRY." The Horse-Grease Doctrine Appears. —The Paper Re-Written.—The Preface or Programme.— "Vague and Indeterminate Notions." Cowpox as known to Fewster and others. —As known to Clayton the Veterinarian. —Evidence of Farmers. — "A. few Solitary Instances." — Experiment is Better. —Cowpox due to Common Causes.—Jenner Denies Spontaneous Cowpox. — Invents "Spurious."— Misleading Likeness to Horse-Grease Sores.— Horse-Grease the Origin of Cow- pox and Smallpox.—John Baker Inoculated with the Grease. Circumstances of his Death. — Inoculations with Cowpox itself. —To the Fourth Remove. —^Jenner goes to London. Inquiry Published. Cline. —Jenner Omits the Test.— Summary of the Inquiry. pp. 49-77. CHAPTER IV. THE RECEPTION OF THE "INQUIRY." "Smallpox of the Cow" Accepted.—The New Name Defended. —Pear- son's Objection. — Dr. John Sims and the Jacobs Case. — John Lawrence on "The Filth and Nastiness of Cowpox." A Conscious —A— vi CONTENTS. View.—Dr. Ingen-housz.—Private Opinion of Beddoes. —Knight Offers to begin Vaccinating. —Jenner without Lymph. —Cowpox at Stonehouse. —^Jenner's Experience with it. —Thornton's Experience with it. — Drake's Experience at Stroud. — Threatened Collapse. Woodville to the Rescue . 78-100. CHAPTER V. COWPOX MADE MILD AND ACCEPTABLE. Woodville's Antecedents. —Pearson and Woodville. —Cowpox in Gray's Inn Lane. —A Mild Type. —Source of the World's Vaccine. —Causes of Woodville's Success. —Pedigree of his Stock.—Lymph from a Dairymaid's Hand. —Jenner Supplied by Woodville, but Seeks to Raise a Stock of his own. —The Public Mystified.— Misleading Effect of Woodville's Mild Type. —The Real Affinities of Cowpox. —Ricord's Experiments to Inoculate Syphilis. — Henry Lee's Experiments anci Plates. —The Vaccine Vesicle in Ordinary. —The Vesicle of Horse- Grease. —Want of Dialectical Scrutiny . pp. 101-124. CHAPTER VI. THE VARIOLOUS TEST. Experiment and Experience. —^James Phipps Tested.—The Test Fails at Stroud. —Woodville's Cases Tested. — Pearson's Tests. — Manchester Tests and their Result. —Failures Reported to Jenner.—The Average Experience. — Variolation as a Test and as an End in itself. —Old- fashioned Variolation. —The New Method of Gatti. —Found out to be a Sham. —Daniel Sutton and Dimsdale.—Bromfeild and Langton Protest against Sham Inoculation.—What Woodville Desired. —The Sham Method General. —^Jenner Recommends the Test in its most Illusory Form.—An Astounding Forgetfulness in the Profession at Large.—Other Fallacies of the Test. —Obstructed Lymphatic Glands. — Sores on the Arm.—Interference of Eruptions, etc. //. 125-154. CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST APOLOGIES FOR FAILURE. Jenner's Foresight. —Horse-Grease the only Genuine Source. —Discredited by Events.—New Definitions of " Spurious."—Horse-Grease Dropped by Jenner. —Taken up by Others.— Jenner's Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation a Retrospective Fable.— His Early Difficulties. —An Editor's Short Memory. —Audacious Mendacity. —Argument of the Further Observations Antedated.— "A Wide Field of Experiment." Woodville's Reticence. — Ingen-housz on "Spurious Smallpox." Henry Jenner on Spurious Cowpox. —Rev. T. D. Fosbroke Explains Spurious Cowpox.—Rev. G. C. Jenner on Spurious Vaccine. —The Profession Demands Definition of " Spurious."—Dr. John Stevenson. —Denman and Lord Derby.—Dunning States the Issue. —Double Use of the " Spurious " Cry.—Ulceration of the Vesicle. —The Clap- ham Cases. —Smallpox after Vaccination is called Chicken-pox.— Mystical Excuse. —Long Career of Apologetics Begun 155-182. —— CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL ASSENT IN ENGLAND. Quality of the First Vaccinists. — Criticism Silenced by Abuse.— The Leaders of Opinion. — Scientific Assent. —The London Testimonial of July, 1800. —^Jenner Confirmed on Every Point. — Completely Estab- lished before Two Years. —Approval by the Public. —Jenner Petitions Parliament for a Reward. —Admiral Berkeley's Committee. —Mono- tonous Evidence of the Medical Leaders. —Jenner gives his *' Concise History."—The Opposition Confined to Variolators. —The Variolous Test not Exposed. —Decision of Parliament. —The Committee Com- " posed of Friends of the Petitioner " . pp. 183-203. CHAPTER IX. THE GERMAN ENDORSEMENT. Securus judicat orbis terrarum.—The Gottingen Academy of Sciences. Osiander's Book. —The Variolous Test at Hanover, —The Epidemic Test.—The Fiasco at Oebisfelde. —Wardenburg's Doctrine of Spurious- ness. —Bremen Experiences. —The Danish Commission. —Berlin. Hufeland's Enthusiasm. —Official Prussian Inquiry. —The King Im- partial. —Results of the Inquiry. —The Movement in Breslau. — Struve's Tests at Gorlitz. — Sommerring's Tests at Frankfurt, — Satires upon Vaccinators. —The New Mode Demanded by the Public, —Hessian Experience. —A Failure at Meissen. —Bavaria. —The Innovation in Vienna, — Criticisms by the Salzburg Journal,—Formal Tests at Vienna, —Vaccination Useful against Plague, Scarlet Fever, Dqg- distemper, and Sheep-pox ..... pp. 204-238. CHAPTER X. RECEPTION OF COWPOX IN FRANCE. Petite verole des vacates. —Jenner too Deep for Verdier, —The Field Open in France, —Comite Central de Vaccine. —Opposition by Vaume. Analysis of Verdier's Objections, —A Reply from Montpellier, Validity of the Variolous Test not Criticised. — Salmade's Mode of Inoculating Smallpox. — Eruption not Essential to Success, —Heber- den's Law of Interference Disregarded.—Voisin's Tests at Versailles. — Colon's Tests in Paris. —Grand Decisive Test by the Comite Central, —Notorious Failure at Toux. —Excused by the Lyons Com- mission. —The Test at Lyons, —The Amiens "Jury of Health" and Lord Cornwallis ....... pp. 239-266. CHAPTER XL THE JENNER OF ITALY. Sacco's Antecedents.—Discovery of Cowpox at Varese. —Sacco's Ideal Plate of Cowpox on the Teats. —The Varese Cowpox Spontaneous. Sacco's Pathology. —Experiments with Cowpox on many Species of Animals. —Cowpox against Sheep-pox.—Dr. William Budd's Con- —— CONTENTS. elusion, —Men not like Sheep. —Dr. Legni Uses Sheep-pox as Vaccine. —Sacco Adopts the Horse-Grease Doctrine and Practice. — "Equine" in Vienna. — Sacco Hailed as the Jenner of Lombardy. —Epidemics Stamped Out. —Formal Variolous Test at the Milan Orphanage. The Test at Florence. —Sacco's Oration in 1832.—Vaccinal Syphilis in Italy. — Marshall in Palermo.—Monteverde's Statue of "Jenner Vaccinating his Child " //. 267-290. CHAPTER XII. ASSENT TO A MYSTERY. Dignified Associations of Vaccination. —Protection by Cowpox an Ac- knowledged Mystery.—The Intellectual Difficulty soon Forgotten. Newman on Assenting to a Mystery. —Real and Notional Assent. Scientific Ramifications Pursued with Exact Diligence. — Popular Assent not to the Mystery, but to each of its Component Propositions.