July 27, 2025 • 58 mins
Dive into the lives and achievements of doctors who made history in their field. Journey from the inception of the prestigious Edinburgh School of Medicine, through William Harveys revolutionary work on blood circulation, to the advancements in surgery and Edward Jenners pivotal role in creating vaccines. This is Volume 1 of a two-part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eight of Eminent Doctors Their Lives in their Work,
Volume one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Eminent Doctors Their Lives and
their Work, Volume one. But George Thomas Betty, Edward Jenner
(00:26):
and Vaccination. Modern preventive medicine may be said to date
from the introduction of innoculation for small box in the
early part of the eighteenth century. It is much more
profitable to dwell on the history of the second step
in this direction, a far greater one, due to the
(00:46):
genius of one man, Edward Jenner, whose life by Doctor Baron,
though not a biographical masterpiece, is the source of much
valuable information. The name of Stephen Jenner has been down
from generation to generation in Gloucestershire, and the Reverend Stephen Jenner,
father of Edward, was Vicar of Berkeley when his famous
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son was born on May seventeenth, seventeen forty nine. The father, however,
died in seventeen fifty four, and an elder son, another
Stephen Jenner, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, is credited with
some attention to his education, but a school life was
not prolonged. For about the thirteenth year of his age,
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he commenced preparation for a medical career by entering upon
apprenticeship to doctor Daniel Ludlow, a medical practitioner at Sodbury,
near Bristol, with whom he remained six years young. Edward,
when a fine muddy boy of eight, was, with many others,
put under a preparatory process for inoculation for smallpox. This
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was indeed a formidable proceeding, lasting six weeks. He was
first blood to ascertain whether his blood was fine, was
then purged repeatedly till the runny youth became emaciated and feeble,
and all the while was kept on a low diet
and dosed with some drink which was supposed to sweeten
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the blood. This is appropriately termed a barbarism of human
veterinary practice. But it was followed by exposure to contagion
from others in the status severe disease. By good luck,
the boy got off with a mild attack, but we
may well ascribe to the lowering preparatory treatment he had
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undergone that he never could as a child in joy sleep,
and was constantly haunted by imaginary noises all his life long.
He was too acutely alive to these impressions and to
any sudden jar It is perhaps more interesting. It is
certainly more important to notice the inflaments exerted upon one
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mind by another than to examine the influences of any
material objects upon human nature. In this light we may
view with pleasure the relations which existed between Jenner, his
elder brother already mentioned, and the great anatomist John Hunter.
The ties of affection and esteem must have been strong,
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which drew the young doctor from the attractions of London,
from constant association with his advied front in his studies,
from opportunities to inquire, such as those afflorded by the
arrangement of Sir Joseph Banks's collection made during Captain Cook's
celebrated voyage, from prospects of gaining worldly advancement, to the
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retirement of a country village, the isolation and the simplicity
of rural existence. We can hardly overestimate the benefits derived
by the developing mind of the young doctor from his
dearly inter course for two years with such a preceptor
as John Hunter. The impression was mutual, for we find
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Hunter years afterwards writing to Jenner, I do not know
anyone I would sooner write to than you. I do
not know anybody I am so much obliged to. A
correspondence full of interest on subjects of natural history was
kept up between them. Hunter's appreciation of his friend's attainments
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was shown markedly when he formed the plan of a
school of natural history and human and comparative anatomy, and
asked Jenner to come and be his partner in the undertaking.
Very many particulars of experiments and inquiries in natural history
by Jenner were communicated to Hunter and were of essential
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service to him. His most important published paper in natural
history was that on the Cuckoo, published in the Philosophical
Transactions for seventeen eighty eight. Jenna's name has been so
exclusively connected in the popular mind with the subject of
vaccination that his ability as a practitioner and his originality
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in many departments of medicine and surgery have been somewhat lost.
Sight of no doubt this was much aided by his
own modesty, But in the treatment of many diseases, his
views founded on the improved anatomy and physiology he had
learned from Hunter, and his own acute observation, were far
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in advance of his time. It was perhaps, however, by
his sympathetic qualities of heart, that Jenna most of all,
obtained and maintained the influence which he possessed. He could
truly rejoice with those that rejoiced, and weep with those
that wept. In him uncommon delicacy of feeling coexisted with
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a joyous and lively disposition, and his gentlemanly manners made
him welcome everywhere. He was ever observant of natural phenomena,
and loved nothing better than to persuade some friend to
ride with him during his long journeys through the countryside.
Those who enjoyed the pleasure have described the vivid and
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imaginative fervor which characterized his conversation, whether in reference to
his own feelings or the beauties of the scenery around,
and the captivating simplicity and ingenuity with which he explained
phenomena of animal and vegetable life which came unto notice.
In fact, he never met anyone without endeavoring to gain
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or to impart instruction. Among the many proofs, of gener sagacity,
and acuteness in matters outside medicine should be mentioned. The
following recorded by Sir Humphrey Davy, showing that Jenner anticipated
the late Charles Darwin in his views of the important
effects for deduced by earthworms upon the soil. He said,
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the earthworms, particularly about the time of the vernal equinox,
were much under and along the surface of our moist
meadow lands, and wherever they move they leave a train
of mucus behind them, which becomes manure to the plant.
In this respect they act as the slug does in
furnishing materials for food to the vegetable kingdom. And under
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the surface they break the stiff clods in pieces and
finally divide the soil. His appearance and manner in this
early portion of his life are thus described by his
intimate friend Edward Gardner. His height was rather under the
metal size. His person was robust, but active and well formed.
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In his dress, he was particularly neat, and everything about
him showed the man intent and serious, and well prepared
to meet the duties of his calling. When I first
saw him, it was on Brampton Green. I was somewhat
his junior in years, and had heard so much of
mister Jenner of Berkeley, that I had no small curiosity
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to see him. He was dressed in a blue coat
and yellow buttons, buckskins, well polished rocky boots with handsome
silver spurs, and he carried a smart whip with a
silver handle. His hair, after the fashion of the times,
was done up in a club, and he wore a
broad brimmed hat. We were introduced on that occasion, and
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I was delighted and astonished. I was repaired to find
an accomplished man, and all the country spoke of him
as a skillful surgeon and a great naturalist. But I
did not expect to find him so much at home
on other matters. I, who had been spending my time
in cultivating my judgment by Abstract's study and smit from
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my boyhood with the love of song, had sought my
amusement and the rosy fields of imagination, was not less
surprised than gratified to find that the ancient affinity between
Apollo and Esculapius was so well maintained in his person,
so informing and yet witty, so full of life, So
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true to life was his conversation that the chance of sharing.
It was eagerly embraced, and his friends rode many miles
to accompany him on his way home from their houses,
even at midnight. His poetical fancy occasionally vented itself in
little pieces of verse, one of which, entitled signs of
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rain beginning the hollow winds begin to blow, will probably
long prove of interest in children's collections of verse. Some
of his epigrams are very apt, and this on the
death of a miser tom at last is laid by
his own niggardly forms and now gives good dinners to
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whom gray the worms. Singing and violin and flute playing
were favorite amusements of his. In his later years, he
would lay aside all cares for a time and sing
one of his own ballads with all the mirth and
gaiety of his youthful days. Science and social intercourse were
combined in two societies, of which Jenna was the soul.
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One he called the Medical Convivial, which met usually at Bradborough,
the other the Convivial Medical, assembling at Alveston. At the
meetings of these societies, Jenna would often bring forward the
reported prophylactic virtues of kyw pox and earnestly recommend his
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medical friends to inquire into the matter. All his efforts, however,
failed to induce them to take it up, and the
subject became so distasteful to them that they at one
time threatened to expel him if he continued to harass them.
Were so unprofitable a subject. Doctor j Lena did not
marry till March sixth, seventeen eighty eight, when Miss Catherine Kingscote,
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a lady belonging to a well known Gloucestershire family frequently
furnishing representatives to Parliament, became his wife. The union was
very happy, but missus Jenner's delicate health for many years
caused great anxiety and needed constant attention. In seventeen ninety two,
Jenna became an m d of Saint Andrew's with the
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view of giving up much of his fatiguing general practice.
In seventeen ninety four, at the age of forty five,
he suffered from a severe attack of typhus fever, which
threatened to prove fatal. At this time, the experiment's proof
of vaccination had not been made, and if he had died,
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the world in all probability might have waited long for
the introduction of his great novelty. Many who learned that
vaccination was made don't to the world in seventeen ninety eight,
when Jenna was forty nine years old, do not know
that the subject attracted his attention in his youthful days
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as the country surgeon's apprentice, and that his faculties were
ever after engaged upon the matter at every convenient opportunity.
He repeatedly mentioned the subject of cowpox to his great teacher,
John Hunter, when studying with him in London. Hunter never
damned the ardor of a pupil by suggesting doubts or difficulties,
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but it does not appear that he was specially impressed
by what he heard. Yet he made known Jenna's information
and opinions, both in his lectures and to his friends.
But for many years Jenna's ideas were poo pooed by
medical and other authorities whom he met in his country practice.
They believed many had had smallpox after cowpox, and at
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the supposed protective influence of the latter was due to
something in the constitution of the individual. Not till seventeen
eighty did Jenna fully disclosed to his devoted friend, Edward Gardner,
his hopes and fears about what he felt to be
his great life work. He then described to him the
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various diseases which attacked milkers when they handled diseased cows,
and especially that form which afforded protection against small box,
and with deep and anxious emotion, expressed his hopes of
being able to propagate this latter form from one human
being to another, so as to bring about the total
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extinction of small box. The exceeding simplicity of the ultimate
discovery makes it difficult for us nowadays to imagine the
circumstances under which Jenner had to grope his way in
the imperfect twilight, and the perplexities by which he was
beset in arriving at true conclusions. Both his own observations
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and that of the medical men of his acquaintance proved
to him that what was commonly called cowpox was not
a certain preventive of smallpox. But he ascertained by assiduous
inquiry and personal investigation that cows were liable to various
kinds of eruptions on their teats, all capable of being
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communicated to the hands of the milkers, and that such sores,
when so communicated, were all called cow pox. But when
he had traced out the nature of these various diseases
and ascertained which of them possessed the protective virtue against
small pox, he was against foiled by learning than in
some cases, when what he now called the true cowpox
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broke out among the cattle on a dairy farm, and
had been communicated to the milkers, they subsequently.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Had small pox.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It was this repeated failure to arrive at a perfect
result which perhaps gave the stimulus the but led Jenner
to ultimate triumph. The fact that he was on the
scent of a discovery which in some form had a
promise of indefinite blessing made him redouble his efforts. When
most perplexed, he conceived the idea that the virus of
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the cowpox itself might undergo change as sufficient to deprive
it of its protective power and yet enable it to
communicate a disease.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
To the milcher.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thus he came at last on the track of the
discovery that was only in a certain condition of the
postule that the virus was capable of imparting its protective
power to the human constitution. Having thus steered his way
safely through all the pitfalls which might have destroyed the
accuracy of his results. Jenna was able to go on
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to the next stage, that of putting his theory to
the test. It is singular how long he was before
he had an opportunity a further experiment. Seventeen eighty eight,
he showed a drawing of the cow pox as it
occurred at Milker's to Sir Edward Holme and others in London.
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Various eminent medical men Kleine, Adams, Haygarth heard of and
discussed the matter, and encouraged Jenna's inquiries, but it was
not till May fourteen, seventeen ninety six that he had
an opportunity a transferring cowpox from one human being to another.
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Sarah Elms, a dairy maid who had been infected from
her master's cows, afforded the matter, and it was inserted
by two superficial incisions into the arms of James Phipps,
a healthy boy about eight years old. The cow pox
ran on an ordinary course with no ill effect, and
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in July Jenna writes to Gardner the boy has since
been inoculated for the smallpox, which as I ventured to
predict produced no effect. I shall not pursue my experiments
with redoubled ardor Jenner did not, even now that he
had attained to certainty in his own mind, rushed precipitately
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into publicity. Although his benevolent desires to avert the scourge
of smallpox from humanity strongly urged him to do so.
Still less did he yield to the temptation to establish
himself as a practitioner with the specialty for warding our smallpox,
which might have led him speedily to fortune. He was,
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as if forearmed against the stringent requirements which would be
made as to the proofs of such a discovery if
made gratuitously public. At this time, he says, while the
vaccine discovered was progressive, the joy I felt at the
prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take
away from the world one of its greatest calamities, blended
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with the fond hope of drawing independence and domestic peace
and happiness, was often so excessive that, in pursuing my
favorite subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself
in a kind of revery. It is pleasant to me
to recollect that these reflections always ended in devioled acknowledgments
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to that being from whom this and all other mercies flow.
Until the spring of seventeen ninety eight, Jenna had no
further opportunity of pursuing his inquiries, but the cockpox disappeared
from the neighboring theories. At last he had matured his
research and it was ready for publication. Before sending it
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to the printers, it was most carefully scrutinized by a
number of friends at Whethall, near Ross in Herfordshire, the
seat of mister Thomas was failing. Their sympathy encouraged him,
and their judgment approved of his work, which none who
read Jenner's modest and now classic recital, An Inquiry into
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the Causes and Effects of the very Old Vacciny, bearing
date June twenty first, seventeen ninety eight, can wonder at.
Previous to this date, however, doctor and Missus Jenner had
been two months in London, experiencing much mortification from the
fact that no one in London could be obtained as
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a patient to be inoculated with cowpox.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Doctor Jenner often stated that his patients had.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Been exhausted on that occasion, and it remained for Henry
Kleine to reform the first successful vaccination in London, Finding
that subsequent inoculation this small box failed to give his
patient any disease. Clin expressed his opinion that this promised
to be one of the greatest improvements ever made in medicine,
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and he begged Jenna to remove to London, promising him
a practice of ten thousand a year. Jenna's sentiments on
this matter are characteristically expressed in the following extract. Shall I,
even in the morning of my days, sought the lowly
and sequestered paths of life, the valley and not the mountain?
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Shall I, now my evening is fast approaching, hold myself
up as an object for fortune and for fame, admitting
it as a certainty that I obtain both. What stock
should I add to my little fund of happiness? My
fortune with what flows in from my profession, is sufficient
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to gratify my wishes. Indeed, so limited is my ambition
and that of my nearest connections, that where I precluded
from future practice, I should be enabled to obtain all
I want. And as for fame, what is it? A
gilded butt forever appears with the arrows of malignancy. The
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first lady of Rank who had her child vaccinated was
Lady Francis Morton. Afterwards, Lady Doucy, the Countess of Berkeley,
very early promoted Jenner's success and ardently advocated vaccination. A
certain doctor Woodville, eager to rank among the vaccinators, discovered
cop hawks and the deary e Graves in Lane in
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January seventeen ninety nine. Found that the monkers became infected
and took from them matter with which he vaccinated a
number of persons. But contrary to Jenner's practice, he proceeded
to insert smallpox matter in their arms on the third
and fifth days after vaccination, as if that could afford
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a fair trial of the new method. No wonder that
the patients exhibited bustils like those of smallpox, and this
was the first of the many disasters that arose from
the injudicious zeal of Jenner's first followers. This same doctor Woodville,
in an interview with Jenner in March of the same year,
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showed themselves so little acquainted with the real character of
cowpox that he described it as having been communicated by effluvia,
and that the patient had it in the confluent way.
Jenner remarked on this might not the disease have been
the confluent smallpox communicated by doctor Woodville, as he is
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always full of the infection. Notwithstanding the mistakes of injudicious friends,
Vaccination began to spread in seventeen ninety nine, largely through
the aid of those friends of Jenna who themselves became inoculators,
including many who were not medical practitioners. In the same
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year came into notice on the continent, the inquiry having
become known in Vienna, Hanover in Geneva. In particular, doctor
di Caro in Vienna became his most zealous and judicious advocate,
and greatly contributed to the striking diminution in the ravages
of smallpox which soon became evident in that city through
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the introduction and widespread of vaccination. A little later, vaccine
matter was first sent to Berlin. The same year vaccination
became known in the United States, Professor Waterhouse of Cambridge,
mass being the first to appreciate its importance. He assumed
as possible, vaccinated his own children, and then had one
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of them publicly inoculated with smallpox, and no infection following
the practice became at once established in the United States,
some contamination, with small parks having taken place by injudicious
action as in England, matter was obtained direct from Jenner,
and President Jefferson, with his sons in law in eighteen
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o one, set the example of vaccinating in their own
families and those of their neighbors two hundred persons. Plans
in Spain had also followed in the wake, and almost
all Europe was now being vaccinated. We cannot follow the
details of the successful introduction of vaccination as by a
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triumphal progress all over the world, proving its efficacy on
men of all color, of all civilizations, of all climates.
Sir Ralph Abercrombie's expedition to Egypt was the first armed
force submitted to vaccination, and its good effects were most
evident at Palermo. It was not unusual to see on
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the mornings of public inoculation at the hospital a procession
of men, women and children conducted through the streets by
a priest carrying a cross, on the way to be inoculated.
The medical officers of the British Navy in eighteen o
one presented doctor Jenna with the Gold Medal in honor
of his discovery. Smallpox was still committing great ravages in
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India and Ceylon, and Jenna exerted himself to the utmost
to transmit vaccine matter to the East. The early attempts
all failed, some from accident, such as the loss of
an East India man at sea, others from inexperience in
sending the virus so great a distance exposed to such
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vicissitudes of climate. Doctor Jenna proposed to the Secretary of
State to send in some ship to India a number
of soldiers who had not had small pox, and to
vaccinate them in succession by appointing a skilled surgeon to
accompany the vessel. But those in office could not see
the wisdom of this plan. Consequently, the noble discoverer resolved
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himself to do what was so needful, and while seeking
to defray part of the cost by a public subscription,
he headed it with the subscription of a thousand guineas.
But before the project could be matured, news prior to
the successful introduction of vaccine matter into Bombay, in consequence
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of its successive transfer to Constantinople, to Baghdad, to Pasora,
and thence by sea to Bombay. The self denying enthusiasm
of doctor Johanna is, however, as conspicuous as if his
expedition had been fitted out as he intended. The simple
narrative which the great Man himself gave in eighteen o
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one in a pamphlet only extending to eight pages, deserves
reproducing in every account of the discovery. Its simplicity is
more forcible than any decorative treatment could have rendered it.
My inquiry into the nature of the cowpox commenced upwards
of twenty five years ago. My attention to this singular
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disease was first excited by observing that, among those who
in the country I was frequently called upon to inoculate,
many resisted every effort to give them the smallpox. These
patients I found it undergone a disease they called the cowpox,
contracted by milking cows affected with a peculiar eruption on
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their teats. On inquiry, it appeared that it had been
known among the deiies time immemorial, and that a vague
opinion prevailed that it was a preventive of the small box.
This opinion I found was comparatively known among them for
all the older families declared they had no such idea
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in their early days. During the investigation of the casual
cow pox, I was struck with the idea that it
might be practicable to propagate the disease by inoculation after
the manner of the smallpox, first from the cow, and
finally from one human being to another. I anxiously waited
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some time for an opportunity of putting this theory to
the test. At length the period arrived, and the first
experiment was made upon a lad at the name of Phipps,
in whose arm a little vaccine virus was inserted taken
from the hand of a young woman or been accidentally
infected by a cow. Notwithstanding the resemblance which the postule
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thus excited on the boy's arm bore to verilis inoculation.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yet as the.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Indisposition attending it was farely perceptible, I could scarcely persuade
myself the patient was secure from the small box. However,
on his being inoculated some months afterwards, it proved that
he was secure. This case inspired me with confidence, and
as soon as I could again furnish myself with the
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virus from the cow, I made an arrangement for a
series of inoculations. A number of children were inoculated in succession,
one from the other, and after several months had elapsed,
they were exposed to the infection of small box, some
by inoculation, others by very oldness effluvia, and some in
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both ways, but they all resisted it. The result of
these trials gradually led me into a wider field of experiment,
which I went over not only with great attention, but
with painful solicitude. The great revolution affected by vaccination can
scarcely be appreciated in our days, and some testimonies from
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the past to continually need it. The Reverend Doctor Booker
of Dudley, which in his time contained fourteen thousand inhabitants,
testified thus respecting vaccination and its striking effects. I have,
previous to the knowledge to the vaccine inoculation frequently varied
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day after day, several and once as many as eight
victims of the small box. But since the parish has
been blessed with this invaluable boon a divine providence Kalpac
introduced among us nearly four years ago, only two victims
have fallen a prey to the above ravaging disorder smallpox
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in the surrounding villages. Like an insatiable moloch, it has
lately been devollowing past numbers where obstinacy and prejudice have
precluded the Guennerian protective blessing, and not a few of
the infected victims have been brought for interment in our cemeteries.
Yet the thousands have thus fallen beside us, The fatal
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pestilence has not hitherto again come nigh our dwelling. The
spirit of jenner Haath stood between the dead and the living,
and the plague has been stayed. Many ladies took up
the practice of vaccination with zeal and skill. Thus, up
to November eighteen o five, Miss Bailey of Hope, near
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Manchester had vaccinated two thousand and six persons, and a
female friend of hers had vaccinated two thousand. Miss Bailey
is related to have carried on her extensive vaccinations.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
With great judgment and precision.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
She commenced by offering five shillings to anyone who could
produce an instance of the occurrence of small box and
any person vaccinated by her.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Out of the whole number.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Of cases above mentioned, however, only one claim was made,
and on referring to her books, it was found that
a mark had been made against the name, indicating a
suspicion that the vaccination had not been effective. Doctor Jenna
has often been reproached for encouraging unprofessional persons to practice vaccination,
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but it should be noted that he never did so
unless the person concerned had carefully studied the subject and
could be relied on to follow his directions implicitly. In fact,
some of the non professional vaccine were more efficient than
many professional ones, but these frequently disdained to be instructed
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by him, and by no means followed the rules he
laid down. Thus this credit came to vaccination to a
great extent by the mistakes of its professional advocates. The
most extraordinary attacks were made upon vaccination and its promoters,
including of course most fierilent denunciations of its supposed anti
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religious tendencies. Opposing doctors detected resemblances to ox faces produced
in children as they alleged by vaccination. A lady complained
that since her daughter was vaccinated, she coughed like a
cow and had grown harry all over her body. And
in one country district who was stated that vaccination had
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been discontinued there because those who had been inoculated in
that manner bellowed like bulls. One mode in which doctors
suffered at the time of the introduction of smallpox is
not often remembered. Inoculation with smallpox was largely practiced, and
some medical men derived a considerable proportion of the income
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from this branch of their profession. It was stated, unto
the authority that doctor Woodville, at one time physician to
the Smallpox Hospital, having given up inoculation and largely practiced vaccination,
his income sank in one year one thousand pounds to
one hundred pounds, and others who refused to discontinue inoculation
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and advocate vaccination were more than suspected of interested motives.
The antagonism of vaccination to the so called designs of
Providence was loudly asserted when doctor Squirrel on this head
maintained that Providence never intended that the vaccine disease should
affect the human race, else why had it not before
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this time visited the inhabitants of the globe. Notwithstanding this,
the vaccine virus has been forced into the blood by
the manufacturing hand of man, and supported not by science
or reason, but by conjecture and folly, only with the
pretense of its exterminating the small box from the face
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of the earth. Again, he denounces the periality and the
impropriety of such a conduct viiz. Of introducing vaccination with
the boasted intention not only to supplant, but also to
change and altar and inshort to prevent the established law
of nature. The law of God prohibits the practice. The
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law of man, and the law of nature loudly exclaim
against it. Inoculation had been just as bitterly denounced as dangerous, sinful, diabolical,
and numerous sermons and medical treatises when it was introduced
les than a century before this, No more striking evidence
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of the beneficial results which attended vaccination even in Jenner's
lifetime could be given than those which attended its introduction
into Vienna, where smallpox had prevailed severely for centuries. The
average number of persons who died at Vienna in each
of the first five years of this century was about
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fourteen thousand, six hundred. Of these, eight hundred and thirty
five died of smallpox in the year eighteen hundred vaccination
being introduced and extensively adopted, The number of deaths from
smallpox felt of one hundred and sixty four in eighteen
o one to sixty one in eighteen o two to
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twenty seven eighteen o three, while in eighteen o four
only two persons died, and these deaths were not occasioned
in Vienna, one being that of a boatman's trial who
caught the disease on the Danube, and the other child
sent to Vienna from a distant part of the Empire
already infected. Yet so long was the practice of vaccination
(36:10):
before it spread to an equal extent in England, that
nine hundred and fifty deaths occurred from smallpox in London
in the last three months only of eighteen o five.
Wherever he might happen to be, Jenna offered to vaccinate
gratuitously all poor persons, or applied to him at fixed times.
(36:31):
The people of one parish in the neighborhood of Cheltenham
held back, or the adjacent parishes accepted the new practice
to a large extent, But in one particular year, the
people at the reluctant parish arrived in large numbers to
claim vaccination for their children. On inquiry, it appeared that
smallpox had been among them, causing many deaths, while those
(36:55):
of their neighbors who had been vaccinated escaped. Yet it
was not this part argument which had been most influential,
but the fact that the cost of coffins and burial
for those who had died of small box became alarming
to the parish officials, and they were moved to urge
the people authoritatively to be vaccinated, and so saved the
(37:17):
parish expenses. From this time forward, for a number of years,
Jenna paid annual visits to London, remaining there a great
part of the season, incessantly occupied in vaccinating and giving
information and instruction on the subject verbally to many medical men,
in writing to a vast number of persons who corresponded
(37:39):
with him from all parts of the world. For everyone
who heard of the discovery and wanted to know more
about it, applied to the discoverer, and in social intercourse
with people of note, whom he never failed to impress pace,
eloquence and perspicuity. We cannot follow here the many incidents
which mark these years. Is intercourse with royal personages, the
(38:03):
addresses of congratulation and gratitude which received from all kinds
of localities and bodies of people. The foundation of the
Royal Genarian Society and the like. A few, however, must
find a place. A Doctor Pearson, to whom we shall
have to refer again, distinguished himself at first as an
(38:25):
ardent vaccinator, but subsequently he seems to have imagined to
himself entitled too much of the distinction which belonged to
doctor Jenner. And in order to secure this set upout
forming a public vaccine board in which the chief official
status was assigned to himself, he succeeded in obtaining the
(38:46):
patronage of the Duke of York and other notable persons.
Addressing Jenner on the subject in December seventeen ninety nine,
Pearson says, it occurs to me that it might not
be disagreeable to you to be an extra corresponding physician.
No expense is to be attached to your situation except
to guinea a year as a subscriber, and indeed I
(39:09):
think you ought to be exempt from that, as you
cannot send any patients. This was pretty well, one might think,
to be addressed to Jenner in one year after the
full publication of his discovery, he was to be shunted
off as an extra corresponding physician. Jenner's answer showed the
sense in which he regarded it. It appears to me
(39:33):
somewhat extraordinary that an institution formed upon so large a scale,
and that has for its object the inoculation of the
cow pox, should have been set on foot and almost
completely organized, without my receiving the most distant intimation of it.
For the present I must beg to leave, to decline
(39:54):
the honor intended me. After some discussion, most of the
royal and influence unchial personages who had promised to support
doctor Pearson's institution withdrew their names from it. At Brunn
in Moravia, where Count Francis Disama introduced in a widely
diffused vaccination, the people erected a temple dedicated to Jenner
(40:18):
and annually held a festival on his birthday. The Dowager
Empress of Russia first promoted vaccination in that empire, gave
the name Vaxinoff to the first child vaccinated. Had the
child taken to Saint Petersburg in one of her own
coaches placed in the Foundling hospital with a provision.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Settled on her for life.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
In eighteen o two, the Empress sent doctor Jenner a
letter signed with their own hand with a valuable diamond ring.
In fact, in all foreign countries vaccination was accepted with
more enthusiasm than in England. The proof of this may
readily be seen in doctor Baron's Life of Jenner. Meanwhile,
(41:04):
Jenna had expended a large amount of money out of
his fortune in visiting London, distributing information, giving up to
a very large extent his practice at Berkeley, and being
by no means recouped by profits of practice in London.
His friends, at length, seeing that he was now debarred
from obtaining from practice an adequate reward for his great discovery,
(41:28):
urged him to apply to Parliament.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
For some reward.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
This was at last done in eighteen o two, and
the petition was recommended very strongly by the King and
considered by a committee of the House of Commons. This
committee received evidence which unanimously affirmed the importance and practical
value of the discovery, and almost as unanimously agreed in
(41:52):
Jenner's originality. Admiral Berkeley, chairman of the committee, said that
Jenners was unquestionably the greatest discovery ever made for the
preservation of.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
The human species.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
A grand to ten thousand pounds was proposed on June second,
eighteen o two, and after a considerable discussion was carried
as against an amendment proposing to grant twenty thousand pounds.
It soon appeared, however, that the House of Commons had
failed to satisfy the sense of justice of the massive people,
(42:26):
as well as of the more eminent members of the
medical profession, and its grant to Jenner. Sir Gilbert Blaine,
in an address he drew up on the subject, said,
it is the universal voice of this as well as
other nations, that the remuneration given to doctor Jenner is
greatly inadequate to his desserts and to the magnitude that
(42:49):
the benefit his discovery has conferred on mankind. In January
eighteen o three was founded the Royal Genarian Institution, under
Royal patronage and with Jenner as President, to propagate vaccination
in London and elsewhere. This continued its operation for some
years with distinguished success, but doctor Walker, who had been
(43:12):
appointed President and oculator, soon began to deviate from Jenner's instructions.
And to adopt methods calculated, in Jenner's view, to bring
the practice into disrepute. Consequently, the dismissal of Walker was
called for, but was negative. In one division to which
Walker had brought in as voters, twenty persons only paid
(43:35):
their subscription on the day of voting. By such absurd
possibilities are the steps of benefactors to their race frequently beset.
The resignation of doctor Walker took place soon afterwards, but
the Generian Institution did not fully recover from the effects
of the dissension, and on the establishment of the National
(43:56):
Vaccine Institution in eighteen o eight, it became practically extinct.
Will it be credited that after the decisive parliamentary vote,
for more than two years, the Treasury delayed to pay
the money on one pretense and another, and when at
last it was paid, nearly one thousand pounds was deducted
(44:18):
on account of fees. Akin to this, though the amount
was trifling, was a demand made upon Jenna for five
pounds admission fieves when the Corporation of Dublin conferred upon
him the freedom of that city. Among the multitude the
testimonies of appreciation which Jenner received not the least interesting
(44:39):
is one which proceeded from the chiefs of the five
nations of Canadian Indians, the Mohawks, the Onna Davis, the Senecas,
the Oneidas, and the Cayucas.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Their addressed to him.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Ran As follows, brother, our father has delivered to us
the book you sent to instruct us how to use
the discovery which the Great Spirit made to you, whereby
the smallpox, that fatal enemy of our tribes may be
driven from the earth. We have to posited your book
in the hands of the man of skill, whom our
(45:13):
great Father employs to attend us when sick or wounded.
We shall not fail to teach our children to speak
the name of Jenna, and to thank the Great Spirit
for bestowing upon him so much wisdom and so much benevolence.
We send with this a belt and string of wampum,
in token of our acceptance of your precious gift, and
(45:34):
we beseech the Great Spirit to take care of you
in this world and in the land of spirits. In
eighteen o four, one of the most beautiful of the
Napoleon's series of metals was struck in commemoration of the
Emperor's estimate of the value of vaccination. He was so
sensible of Jenner's claims that he allowed his petitions for
(45:55):
the liberation of British subjects to prevail. Napoleon was about
to reject one peedition, but when Josephine uttered the name
of Jenna, he paused and exclaimed, Jenner, ah, we can
refuse nothing to that man. Perhaps no more striking example
of the extent to which Jenna's influence extended outside England
(46:18):
could be given than the fact that numbers of persons
traveled abroad or on shipboard bearing with them in preference
to a passport, a simple certificate signed Edward Jenner, testifying
that the persons were known to him and were traveling
in pursuit of health, or science, or other affairs unconnected
(46:38):
with war. When the Great War was over and the
Allied sovereigns visited London, Jenna was introduced, among others, to
the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia by
their special request. But in Great Britain there were many
things calculated to detract from Jena's perfect enjoyment. On very
(47:00):
occasions the British government were, by no means eager to
show him a respect and honor equal to that pay
to him abroad. When various government officials combined to launch
a national vaccine establishment, it was at first stated that
Jenna was to be director, with the stipulation that no
one was to take any part in the vaccinating department
(47:23):
who was not either nominated or approved by him. Yet
soon afterwards, out of eight persons nominated by Jenner, six
were rejected. Jenner himself was not admitted a member of
the board, which was composed exclusively of the four censors
of the College of Physicians and the Master and two
(47:43):
senior boardens of the College of Certaints. In consequence of
this treatment occurring in eighteen o eight, when vaccination was
so universally recognized, doctor Jenner resigned the post of Director,
but was succeeded by his friend mister Moore, who was
thoroughly in his confidence. A picture of Jenna's inward life
(48:04):
at this period, when the subject of a second Parliamentary
grant was being considered, may he be given from a
letter of his As for myself, I bear the fatigues
and worries of a public character better by far than
those who know the acuteness of my feelings. Could have
anticipated happy should I be to give up my laurels
(48:26):
for the repose of retirement. Did I not feel it
to be my duty to be in the world. I
certainly derived the most soothing consolation from my labors, the
benefits of which are felt the world over, but less appreciated,
perhaps in this island than in any other part of
the civilized world. Cheltenham is much improves since you saw it.
(48:49):
It is too gay for me. I still like my
breast to count Old Berkeley best. Where we are all
going in about a fortnight. Edward is growing tall and
is long looked over my head. Catherine, now eleven years old,
is a promising girl, and Robert, eight years old, is
just a chip off the old block. In July eighteen
(49:12):
o six, Lord Henry Petty, who had succeeded mister Pitt
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried a motion in the
Comments that the Royal College and Physicians should be requested
to inquire into the progress of vaccine inoculation. The College
made an inquiry, giving the fulloscope to the opponents of vaccination,
(49:34):
and finally reported that, considering the number respectability disinterested ness,
an extensive experience of its advocates, compared with the feeble
and imperfect testimonies of its view opposers, the value of
the practice seemed to establish as firmly as possible. In
July eighteen o seven, the subject was again debated in Parliament,
(49:59):
and a proposal to de grant ten thousand pounds was
rejected in favor of one mood by mister Edward Morris,
that twenty thousand pounds be granted to doctor Jenner. The
European inhabitants of India were from the first among the
most earnest in recognizing Jenna's merits, and afforded him in
(50:20):
many ways. Practical testimonies of their gratitude above four thousand
pounds were transmitted to him from Calcutta in eighteen o six,
and following years from Bombay two thousand pounds, and from
Madras nearly fourteen hundred pounds. The effects of incessant labors
were beginning seriously to tell on Jenner's health when in
(50:43):
eighteen ten he lost his eldest son from consumption in
his twenty first year. This event preyed much on his
mind and left him an estate occasion in great anxiety
to his friends In the same year he lost his
firm friend, the Earl of Berkeley, and his beloved sister,
Missus Black. Under these troubles, he felt the more acutely
(51:05):
the calumnious attacks to which he was constantly subjected. Doctor
Perry of Bath, writing to him about this time, says,
for Heaven's sake, think no more of these wasps who
hum and buss about you, and whom your indifference in
silence will please into utter oblivion. Let me again entreat
(51:25):
you not to give them one moment's consideration. Opus exigesty,
airy parentius. The great business is accomplished, and the blessing
is ready for those who choose to avail themselves of it.
And with regard to those who rejected, the evil will
be on their own heads. In eighteen eleven occurred the
(51:46):
first well authenticated case of small box in a boy
vaccinated by Jenner the Honorable Robert Grosvenor. The disease became
severe and threatened death when all at once the latest
ages were passed through rapidly and a good recovery was made.
Other vaccinated children in this family were exposed to the
(52:08):
contagion and did not suffer. This seemed every reason, as
Jenna explained to ascribe the failure of protection in the
first case to a peculiarity of constitution which would probably
have exposed the patient to a second attack of smallpox.
In fact, doctor Jenna had vaccinated the child when in
(52:29):
weak health at a month old. Lady Grosvenner was timid
and prevailed on him contrary to his usual practice to
make one puncture only, and the pustule that resulted was
deranged in its progress by being robbed by the nurse. Nevertheless,
the case created much alarm and excitement, and greatly axhilearrated
(52:52):
the anti vaxinists. Jenna's simple answer was to admit the fact,
alleging that if ten fifty or a hunt at such
events should occur, they would be bounced a hundred times
over by cases of second attacks of small box. I
have ever considered the verioldess and the vaccine radically and
essentially the same, as the inoculation of the former has
(53:16):
been known to fail an instances so numerous it would
be very extraordinary if the latter should always be exempt
from failure. It would tend to invalidate my early doctrine
on this point. A letter of Jeneit to doctor Baron
on this subject exhipt as perhaps the utmost degree of
(53:36):
irritation that he showed the town is a fool, an idiot,
he remarks, and will continue in this red hot, hissing
state about this affair till something else starts up to
draw aside its attention. I am determined to lock up
my brains and think no more pro bono publical. It
(53:57):
is my intention to collect all the cases I can
of small books after supposed security from their disease. In
eighteen thirteen, the degree of m d was voted to
Jenner by the University of Oxford. It was expected that
the London College of Physicians would have followed suit by
admitting him to membership, but they exacted a full examination
(54:20):
which Jenner, at his age and with his reputation, could
not be expected to submit too. In the summer of
eighteen fourteen, Jenna visited London for the last time, being
presented to the CSAR and having numerous interviews with his sister,
the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg. On the thirteenth September eighteen fifteen,
(54:42):
Missus Jenner died, a calamity which most deeply afflicted doctor
Jenner and seemed to mark his retirement from active public life.
It is much to be regretted that he did not
live to complete and publish his own final account and
matured convictions as to the suitable conditions of vaccination and
(55:02):
the modifications and imperfections to which it was liable. This
engaged much of his attention in his later years, but
his inquiries were interrupted by illness and by family affliction.
His later years were made painful by extreme nervous sensitiveness,
and he had several attacks which foreboded death by apoplexy,
(55:25):
which ultimately occurred on twenty sixth January eighteen twenty three.
He was buried at Berkeley by the side of his
wife on third February. Jenna's Nature, says his biographer, was mild, unobtrusive, unambitious.
The singleness of his heart and his genuine modesty graced
(55:46):
and adorned his splendid reputation. Had those who opposed him
known how little of selfishness, vanity, or pride entered into
his composition, he made no answer to his versions.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
All the friends who watched.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Him longest and have seen most of his mind and
of his conduct with one voice declare that there was
something about him which they never witnessed in any other man.
The first things that a stranger would remark with the gentleness,
the simplicity, the artlessness of his manner. There was a
total absence of all ostentation or display, so much so
(56:26):
that in the ordinary intercourse of society he appeared as
a person who had no claims to notice. He was
perfectly unreserved and free from all guile. He carried his
heart and his mind so openly, so undisguisedly, that all.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Might read them. You could not converse with him.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
You could not enter his house nor his study, without
seeing what sort of man dwelt there. The objects of
his studies generally lay scattered around him, as he used
often to say himself, seemingly in chaotic confusion. Fossils and
other specimens of natural history, anatomical preparations, books, papers, letters,
(57:10):
all presented themselves in strange disorder, but every article bore
the impress of the genius that presided there. The fossils
were marked by small pieces of paper pasted on them,
having their names and the places where they were found
inscribed in his own plain and distinct handwriting. He seemed
(57:30):
to have no secrets of any kind, and atwithstanding a
long experience with the world, he acted to the last
as if all mankind were trustworthy and free from selfishness.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
As himself.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
He had a working head, being never idle, and accumulated
a great store of original observations. These treasures he imparted
most generously and liberally. Indeed, his chief pleasure seemed to
be imploring out the ample riches of his mind to
every one who enjoyed his acquaintance. He had often reason
(58:05):
to lament this unbounded confidence, but such ungrateful returns neither
chilled his ardor nor ruffled his temper. Such was the
man to whom the world was indebted for vaccination. No
court or metropolitan physician, no university student, but a country doctor,
a man of science and of benevolence, whose name is
(58:29):
undying and of Section eight
Section eight of Eminent Doctors Their Lives in their Work,
Volume one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Eminent Doctors Their Lives and
their Work, Volume one. But George Thomas Betty, Edward Jenner
(00:26):
and Vaccination. Modern preventive medicine may be said to date
from the introduction of innoculation for small box in the
early part of the eighteenth century. It is much more
profitable to dwell on the history of the second step
in this direction, a far greater one, due to the
(00:46):
genius of one man, Edward Jenner, whose life by Doctor Baron,
though not a biographical masterpiece, is the source of much
valuable information. The name of Stephen Jenner has been down
from generation to generation in Gloucestershire, and the Reverend Stephen Jenner,
father of Edward, was Vicar of Berkeley when his famous
(01:09):
son was born on May seventeenth, seventeen forty nine. The father, however,
died in seventeen fifty four, and an elder son, another
Stephen Jenner, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, is credited with
some attention to his education, but a school life was
not prolonged. For about the thirteenth year of his age,
(01:32):
he commenced preparation for a medical career by entering upon
apprenticeship to doctor Daniel Ludlow, a medical practitioner at Sodbury,
near Bristol, with whom he remained six years young. Edward,
when a fine muddy boy of eight, was, with many others,
put under a preparatory process for inoculation for smallpox. This
(01:57):
was indeed a formidable proceeding, lasting six weeks. He was
first blood to ascertain whether his blood was fine, was
then purged repeatedly till the runny youth became emaciated and feeble,
and all the while was kept on a low diet
and dosed with some drink which was supposed to sweeten
(02:18):
the blood. This is appropriately termed a barbarism of human
veterinary practice. But it was followed by exposure to contagion
from others in the status severe disease. By good luck,
the boy got off with a mild attack, but we
may well ascribe to the lowering preparatory treatment he had
(02:39):
undergone that he never could as a child in joy sleep,
and was constantly haunted by imaginary noises all his life long.
He was too acutely alive to these impressions and to
any sudden jar It is perhaps more interesting. It is
certainly more important to notice the inflaments exerted upon one
(03:01):
mind by another than to examine the influences of any
material objects upon human nature. In this light we may
view with pleasure the relations which existed between Jenner, his
elder brother already mentioned, and the great anatomist John Hunter.
The ties of affection and esteem must have been strong,
(03:24):
which drew the young doctor from the attractions of London,
from constant association with his advied front in his studies,
from opportunities to inquire, such as those afflorded by the
arrangement of Sir Joseph Banks's collection made during Captain Cook's
celebrated voyage, from prospects of gaining worldly advancement, to the
(03:46):
retirement of a country village, the isolation and the simplicity
of rural existence. We can hardly overestimate the benefits derived
by the developing mind of the young doctor from his
dearly inter course for two years with such a preceptor
as John Hunter. The impression was mutual, for we find
(04:07):
Hunter years afterwards writing to Jenner, I do not know
anyone I would sooner write to than you. I do
not know anybody I am so much obliged to. A
correspondence full of interest on subjects of natural history was
kept up between them. Hunter's appreciation of his friend's attainments
(04:28):
was shown markedly when he formed the plan of a
school of natural history and human and comparative anatomy, and
asked Jenner to come and be his partner in the undertaking.
Very many particulars of experiments and inquiries in natural history
by Jenner were communicated to Hunter and were of essential
(04:49):
service to him. His most important published paper in natural
history was that on the Cuckoo, published in the Philosophical
Transactions for seventeen eighty eight. Jenna's name has been so
exclusively connected in the popular mind with the subject of
vaccination that his ability as a practitioner and his originality
(05:12):
in many departments of medicine and surgery have been somewhat lost.
Sight of no doubt this was much aided by his
own modesty, But in the treatment of many diseases, his
views founded on the improved anatomy and physiology he had
learned from Hunter, and his own acute observation, were far
(05:33):
in advance of his time. It was perhaps, however, by
his sympathetic qualities of heart, that Jenna most of all,
obtained and maintained the influence which he possessed. He could
truly rejoice with those that rejoiced, and weep with those
that wept. In him uncommon delicacy of feeling coexisted with
(05:56):
a joyous and lively disposition, and his gentlemanly manners made
him welcome everywhere. He was ever observant of natural phenomena,
and loved nothing better than to persuade some friend to
ride with him during his long journeys through the countryside.
Those who enjoyed the pleasure have described the vivid and
(06:17):
imaginative fervor which characterized his conversation, whether in reference to
his own feelings or the beauties of the scenery around,
and the captivating simplicity and ingenuity with which he explained
phenomena of animal and vegetable life which came unto notice.
In fact, he never met anyone without endeavoring to gain
(06:40):
or to impart instruction. Among the many proofs, of gener sagacity,
and acuteness in matters outside medicine should be mentioned. The
following recorded by Sir Humphrey Davy, showing that Jenner anticipated
the late Charles Darwin in his views of the important
effects for deduced by earthworms upon the soil. He said,
(07:03):
the earthworms, particularly about the time of the vernal equinox,
were much under and along the surface of our moist
meadow lands, and wherever they move they leave a train
of mucus behind them, which becomes manure to the plant.
In this respect they act as the slug does in
furnishing materials for food to the vegetable kingdom. And under
(07:27):
the surface they break the stiff clods in pieces and
finally divide the soil. His appearance and manner in this
early portion of his life are thus described by his
intimate friend Edward Gardner. His height was rather under the
metal size. His person was robust, but active and well formed.
(07:48):
In his dress, he was particularly neat, and everything about
him showed the man intent and serious, and well prepared
to meet the duties of his calling. When I first
saw him, it was on Brampton Green. I was somewhat
his junior in years, and had heard so much of
mister Jenner of Berkeley, that I had no small curiosity
(08:09):
to see him. He was dressed in a blue coat
and yellow buttons, buckskins, well polished rocky boots with handsome
silver spurs, and he carried a smart whip with a
silver handle. His hair, after the fashion of the times,
was done up in a club, and he wore a
broad brimmed hat. We were introduced on that occasion, and
(08:32):
I was delighted and astonished. I was repaired to find
an accomplished man, and all the country spoke of him
as a skillful surgeon and a great naturalist. But I
did not expect to find him so much at home
on other matters. I, who had been spending my time
in cultivating my judgment by Abstract's study and smit from
(08:53):
my boyhood with the love of song, had sought my
amusement and the rosy fields of imagination, was not less
surprised than gratified to find that the ancient affinity between
Apollo and Esculapius was so well maintained in his person,
so informing and yet witty, so full of life, So
(09:14):
true to life was his conversation that the chance of sharing.
It was eagerly embraced, and his friends rode many miles
to accompany him on his way home from their houses,
even at midnight. His poetical fancy occasionally vented itself in
little pieces of verse, one of which, entitled signs of
(09:35):
rain beginning the hollow winds begin to blow, will probably
long prove of interest in children's collections of verse. Some
of his epigrams are very apt, and this on the
death of a miser tom at last is laid by
his own niggardly forms and now gives good dinners to
(09:56):
whom gray the worms. Singing and violin and flute playing
were favorite amusements of his. In his later years, he
would lay aside all cares for a time and sing
one of his own ballads with all the mirth and
gaiety of his youthful days. Science and social intercourse were
combined in two societies, of which Jenna was the soul.
(10:20):
One he called the Medical Convivial, which met usually at Bradborough,
the other the Convivial Medical, assembling at Alveston. At the
meetings of these societies, Jenna would often bring forward the
reported prophylactic virtues of kyw pox and earnestly recommend his
(10:40):
medical friends to inquire into the matter. All his efforts, however,
failed to induce them to take it up, and the
subject became so distasteful to them that they at one
time threatened to expel him if he continued to harass them.
Were so unprofitable a subject. Doctor j Lena did not
marry till March sixth, seventeen eighty eight, when Miss Catherine Kingscote,
(11:06):
a lady belonging to a well known Gloucestershire family frequently
furnishing representatives to Parliament, became his wife. The union was
very happy, but missus Jenner's delicate health for many years
caused great anxiety and needed constant attention. In seventeen ninety two,
Jenna became an m d of Saint Andrew's with the
(11:30):
view of giving up much of his fatiguing general practice.
In seventeen ninety four, at the age of forty five,
he suffered from a severe attack of typhus fever, which
threatened to prove fatal. At this time, the experiment's proof
of vaccination had not been made, and if he had died,
(11:50):
the world in all probability might have waited long for
the introduction of his great novelty. Many who learned that
vaccination was made don't to the world in seventeen ninety eight,
when Jenna was forty nine years old, do not know
that the subject attracted his attention in his youthful days
(12:10):
as the country surgeon's apprentice, and that his faculties were
ever after engaged upon the matter at every convenient opportunity.
He repeatedly mentioned the subject of cowpox to his great teacher,
John Hunter, when studying with him in London. Hunter never
damned the ardor of a pupil by suggesting doubts or difficulties,
(12:32):
but it does not appear that he was specially impressed
by what he heard. Yet he made known Jenna's information
and opinions, both in his lectures and to his friends.
But for many years Jenna's ideas were poo pooed by
medical and other authorities whom he met in his country practice.
They believed many had had smallpox after cowpox, and at
(12:56):
the supposed protective influence of the latter was due to
something in the constitution of the individual. Not till seventeen
eighty did Jenna fully disclosed to his devoted friend, Edward Gardner,
his hopes and fears about what he felt to be
his great life work. He then described to him the
(13:16):
various diseases which attacked milkers when they handled diseased cows,
and especially that form which afforded protection against small box,
and with deep and anxious emotion, expressed his hopes of
being able to propagate this latter form from one human
being to another, so as to bring about the total
(13:37):
extinction of small box. The exceeding simplicity of the ultimate
discovery makes it difficult for us nowadays to imagine the
circumstances under which Jenner had to grope his way in
the imperfect twilight, and the perplexities by which he was
beset in arriving at true conclusions. Both his own observations
(13:59):
and that of the medical men of his acquaintance proved
to him that what was commonly called cowpox was not
a certain preventive of smallpox. But he ascertained by assiduous
inquiry and personal investigation that cows were liable to various
kinds of eruptions on their teats, all capable of being
(14:20):
communicated to the hands of the milkers, and that such sores,
when so communicated, were all called cow pox. But when
he had traced out the nature of these various diseases
and ascertained which of them possessed the protective virtue against
small pox, he was against foiled by learning than in
some cases, when what he now called the true cowpox
(14:45):
broke out among the cattle on a dairy farm, and
had been communicated to the milkers, they subsequently.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Had small pox.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It was this repeated failure to arrive at a perfect
result which perhaps gave the stimulus the but led Jenner
to ultimate triumph. The fact that he was on the
scent of a discovery which in some form had a
promise of indefinite blessing made him redouble his efforts. When
most perplexed, he conceived the idea that the virus of
(15:15):
the cowpox itself might undergo change as sufficient to deprive
it of its protective power and yet enable it to
communicate a disease.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
To the milcher.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thus he came at last on the track of the
discovery that was only in a certain condition of the
postule that the virus was capable of imparting its protective
power to the human constitution. Having thus steered his way
safely through all the pitfalls which might have destroyed the
accuracy of his results. Jenna was able to go on
(15:48):
to the next stage, that of putting his theory to
the test. It is singular how long he was before
he had an opportunity a further experiment. Seventeen eighty eight,
he showed a drawing of the cow pox as it
occurred at Milker's to Sir Edward Holme and others in London.
(16:09):
Various eminent medical men Kleine, Adams, Haygarth heard of and
discussed the matter, and encouraged Jenna's inquiries, but it was
not till May fourteen, seventeen ninety six that he had
an opportunity a transferring cowpox from one human being to another.
(16:29):
Sarah Elms, a dairy maid who had been infected from
her master's cows, afforded the matter, and it was inserted
by two superficial incisions into the arms of James Phipps,
a healthy boy about eight years old. The cow pox
ran on an ordinary course with no ill effect, and
(16:50):
in July Jenna writes to Gardner the boy has since
been inoculated for the smallpox, which as I ventured to
predict produced no effect. I shall not pursue my experiments
with redoubled ardor Jenner did not, even now that he
had attained to certainty in his own mind, rushed precipitately
(17:13):
into publicity. Although his benevolent desires to avert the scourge
of smallpox from humanity strongly urged him to do so.
Still less did he yield to the temptation to establish
himself as a practitioner with the specialty for warding our smallpox,
which might have led him speedily to fortune. He was,
(17:35):
as if forearmed against the stringent requirements which would be
made as to the proofs of such a discovery if
made gratuitously public. At this time, he says, while the
vaccine discovered was progressive, the joy I felt at the
prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take
away from the world one of its greatest calamities, blended
(17:58):
with the fond hope of drawing independence and domestic peace
and happiness, was often so excessive that, in pursuing my
favorite subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself
in a kind of revery. It is pleasant to me
to recollect that these reflections always ended in devioled acknowledgments
(18:19):
to that being from whom this and all other mercies flow.
Until the spring of seventeen ninety eight, Jenna had no
further opportunity of pursuing his inquiries, but the cockpox disappeared
from the neighboring theories. At last he had matured his
research and it was ready for publication. Before sending it
(18:42):
to the printers, it was most carefully scrutinized by a
number of friends at Whethall, near Ross in Herfordshire, the
seat of mister Thomas was failing. Their sympathy encouraged him,
and their judgment approved of his work, which none who
read Jenner's modest and now classic recital, An Inquiry into
(19:03):
the Causes and Effects of the very Old Vacciny, bearing
date June twenty first, seventeen ninety eight, can wonder at.
Previous to this date, however, doctor and Missus Jenner had
been two months in London, experiencing much mortification from the
fact that no one in London could be obtained as
(19:24):
a patient to be inoculated with cowpox.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Doctor Jenner often stated that his patients had.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Been exhausted on that occasion, and it remained for Henry
Kleine to reform the first successful vaccination in London, Finding
that subsequent inoculation this small box failed to give his
patient any disease. Clin expressed his opinion that this promised
to be one of the greatest improvements ever made in medicine,
(19:54):
and he begged Jenna to remove to London, promising him
a practice of ten thousand a year. Jenna's sentiments on
this matter are characteristically expressed in the following extract. Shall I,
even in the morning of my days, sought the lowly
and sequestered paths of life, the valley and not the mountain?
(20:16):
Shall I, now my evening is fast approaching, hold myself
up as an object for fortune and for fame, admitting
it as a certainty that I obtain both. What stock
should I add to my little fund of happiness? My
fortune with what flows in from my profession, is sufficient
(20:36):
to gratify my wishes. Indeed, so limited is my ambition
and that of my nearest connections, that where I precluded
from future practice, I should be enabled to obtain all
I want. And as for fame, what is it? A
gilded butt forever appears with the arrows of malignancy. The
(20:58):
first lady of Rank who had her child vaccinated was
Lady Francis Morton. Afterwards, Lady Doucy, the Countess of Berkeley,
very early promoted Jenner's success and ardently advocated vaccination. A
certain doctor Woodville, eager to rank among the vaccinators, discovered
cop hawks and the deary e Graves in Lane in
(21:22):
January seventeen ninety nine. Found that the monkers became infected
and took from them matter with which he vaccinated a
number of persons. But contrary to Jenner's practice, he proceeded
to insert smallpox matter in their arms on the third
and fifth days after vaccination, as if that could afford
(21:43):
a fair trial of the new method. No wonder that
the patients exhibited bustils like those of smallpox, and this
was the first of the many disasters that arose from
the injudicious zeal of Jenner's first followers. This same doctor Woodville,
in an interview with Jenner in March of the same year,
(22:03):
showed themselves so little acquainted with the real character of
cowpox that he described it as having been communicated by effluvia,
and that the patient had it in the confluent way.
Jenner remarked on this might not the disease have been
the confluent smallpox communicated by doctor Woodville, as he is
(22:25):
always full of the infection. Notwithstanding the mistakes of injudicious friends,
Vaccination began to spread in seventeen ninety nine, largely through
the aid of those friends of Jenna who themselves became inoculators,
including many who were not medical practitioners. In the same
(22:45):
year came into notice on the continent, the inquiry having
become known in Vienna, Hanover in Geneva. In particular, doctor
di Caro in Vienna became his most zealous and judicious advocate,
and greatly contributed to the striking diminution in the ravages
of smallpox which soon became evident in that city through
(23:08):
the introduction and widespread of vaccination. A little later, vaccine
matter was first sent to Berlin. The same year vaccination
became known in the United States, Professor Waterhouse of Cambridge,
mass being the first to appreciate its importance. He assumed
as possible, vaccinated his own children, and then had one
(23:30):
of them publicly inoculated with smallpox, and no infection following
the practice became at once established in the United States,
some contamination, with small parks having taken place by injudicious
action as in England, matter was obtained direct from Jenner,
and President Jefferson, with his sons in law in eighteen
(23:53):
o one, set the example of vaccinating in their own
families and those of their neighbors two hundred persons. Plans
in Spain had also followed in the wake, and almost
all Europe was now being vaccinated. We cannot follow the
details of the successful introduction of vaccination as by a
(24:14):
triumphal progress all over the world, proving its efficacy on
men of all color, of all civilizations, of all climates.
Sir Ralph Abercrombie's expedition to Egypt was the first armed
force submitted to vaccination, and its good effects were most
evident at Palermo. It was not unusual to see on
(24:35):
the mornings of public inoculation at the hospital a procession
of men, women and children conducted through the streets by
a priest carrying a cross, on the way to be inoculated.
The medical officers of the British Navy in eighteen o
one presented doctor Jenna with the Gold Medal in honor
of his discovery. Smallpox was still committing great ravages in
(25:00):
India and Ceylon, and Jenna exerted himself to the utmost
to transmit vaccine matter to the East. The early attempts
all failed, some from accident, such as the loss of
an East India man at sea, others from inexperience in
sending the virus so great a distance exposed to such
(25:21):
vicissitudes of climate. Doctor Jenna proposed to the Secretary of
State to send in some ship to India a number
of soldiers who had not had small pox, and to
vaccinate them in succession by appointing a skilled surgeon to
accompany the vessel. But those in office could not see
the wisdom of this plan. Consequently, the noble discoverer resolved
(25:45):
himself to do what was so needful, and while seeking
to defray part of the cost by a public subscription,
he headed it with the subscription of a thousand guineas.
But before the project could be matured, news prior to
the successful introduction of vaccine matter into Bombay, in consequence
(26:06):
of its successive transfer to Constantinople, to Baghdad, to Pasora,
and thence by sea to Bombay. The self denying enthusiasm
of doctor Johanna is, however, as conspicuous as if his
expedition had been fitted out as he intended. The simple
narrative which the great Man himself gave in eighteen o
(26:27):
one in a pamphlet only extending to eight pages, deserves
reproducing in every account of the discovery. Its simplicity is
more forcible than any decorative treatment could have rendered it.
My inquiry into the nature of the cowpox commenced upwards
of twenty five years ago. My attention to this singular
(26:49):
disease was first excited by observing that, among those who
in the country I was frequently called upon to inoculate,
many resisted every effort to give them the smallpox. These
patients I found it undergone a disease they called the cowpox,
contracted by milking cows affected with a peculiar eruption on
(27:11):
their teats. On inquiry, it appeared that it had been
known among the deiies time immemorial, and that a vague
opinion prevailed that it was a preventive of the small box.
This opinion I found was comparatively known among them for
all the older families declared they had no such idea
(27:32):
in their early days. During the investigation of the casual
cow pox, I was struck with the idea that it
might be practicable to propagate the disease by inoculation after
the manner of the smallpox, first from the cow, and
finally from one human being to another. I anxiously waited
(27:53):
some time for an opportunity of putting this theory to
the test. At length the period arrived, and the first
experiment was made upon a lad at the name of Phipps,
in whose arm a little vaccine virus was inserted taken
from the hand of a young woman or been accidentally
infected by a cow. Notwithstanding the resemblance which the postule
(28:16):
thus excited on the boy's arm bore to verilis inoculation.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yet as the.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Indisposition attending it was farely perceptible, I could scarcely persuade
myself the patient was secure from the small box. However,
on his being inoculated some months afterwards, it proved that
he was secure. This case inspired me with confidence, and
as soon as I could again furnish myself with the
(28:43):
virus from the cow, I made an arrangement for a
series of inoculations. A number of children were inoculated in succession,
one from the other, and after several months had elapsed,
they were exposed to the infection of small box, some
by inoculation, others by very oldness effluvia, and some in
(29:05):
both ways, but they all resisted it. The result of
these trials gradually led me into a wider field of experiment,
which I went over not only with great attention, but
with painful solicitude. The great revolution affected by vaccination can
scarcely be appreciated in our days, and some testimonies from
(29:28):
the past to continually need it. The Reverend Doctor Booker
of Dudley, which in his time contained fourteen thousand inhabitants,
testified thus respecting vaccination and its striking effects. I have,
previous to the knowledge to the vaccine inoculation frequently varied
(29:48):
day after day, several and once as many as eight
victims of the small box. But since the parish has
been blessed with this invaluable boon a divine providence Kalpac
introduced among us nearly four years ago, only two victims
have fallen a prey to the above ravaging disorder smallpox
(30:12):
in the surrounding villages. Like an insatiable moloch, it has
lately been devollowing past numbers where obstinacy and prejudice have
precluded the Guennerian protective blessing, and not a few of
the infected victims have been brought for interment in our cemeteries.
Yet the thousands have thus fallen beside us, The fatal
(30:36):
pestilence has not hitherto again come nigh our dwelling. The
spirit of jenner Haath stood between the dead and the living,
and the plague has been stayed. Many ladies took up
the practice of vaccination with zeal and skill. Thus, up
to November eighteen o five, Miss Bailey of Hope, near
(30:56):
Manchester had vaccinated two thousand and six persons, and a
female friend of hers had vaccinated two thousand. Miss Bailey
is related to have carried on her extensive vaccinations.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
With great judgment and precision.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
She commenced by offering five shillings to anyone who could
produce an instance of the occurrence of small box and
any person vaccinated by her.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Out of the whole number.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Of cases above mentioned, however, only one claim was made,
and on referring to her books, it was found that
a mark had been made against the name, indicating a
suspicion that the vaccination had not been effective. Doctor Jenna
has often been reproached for encouraging unprofessional persons to practice vaccination,
(31:46):
but it should be noted that he never did so
unless the person concerned had carefully studied the subject and
could be relied on to follow his directions implicitly. In fact,
some of the non professional vaccine were more efficient than
many professional ones, but these frequently disdained to be instructed
(32:06):
by him, and by no means followed the rules he
laid down. Thus this credit came to vaccination to a
great extent by the mistakes of its professional advocates. The
most extraordinary attacks were made upon vaccination and its promoters,
including of course most fierilent denunciations of its supposed anti
(32:28):
religious tendencies. Opposing doctors detected resemblances to ox faces produced
in children as they alleged by vaccination. A lady complained
that since her daughter was vaccinated, she coughed like a
cow and had grown harry all over her body. And
in one country district who was stated that vaccination had
(32:50):
been discontinued there because those who had been inoculated in
that manner bellowed like bulls. One mode in which doctors
suffered at the time of the introduction of smallpox is
not often remembered. Inoculation with smallpox was largely practiced, and
some medical men derived a considerable proportion of the income
(33:12):
from this branch of their profession. It was stated, unto
the authority that doctor Woodville, at one time physician to
the Smallpox Hospital, having given up inoculation and largely practiced vaccination,
his income sank in one year one thousand pounds to
one hundred pounds, and others who refused to discontinue inoculation
(33:35):
and advocate vaccination were more than suspected of interested motives.
The antagonism of vaccination to the so called designs of
Providence was loudly asserted when doctor Squirrel on this head
maintained that Providence never intended that the vaccine disease should
affect the human race, else why had it not before
(33:58):
this time visited the inhabitants of the globe. Notwithstanding this,
the vaccine virus has been forced into the blood by
the manufacturing hand of man, and supported not by science
or reason, but by conjecture and folly, only with the
pretense of its exterminating the small box from the face
(34:20):
of the earth. Again, he denounces the periality and the
impropriety of such a conduct viiz. Of introducing vaccination with
the boasted intention not only to supplant, but also to
change and altar and inshort to prevent the established law
of nature. The law of God prohibits the practice. The
(34:43):
law of man, and the law of nature loudly exclaim
against it. Inoculation had been just as bitterly denounced as dangerous, sinful, diabolical,
and numerous sermons and medical treatises when it was introduced
les than a century before this, No more striking evidence
(35:04):
of the beneficial results which attended vaccination even in Jenner's
lifetime could be given than those which attended its introduction
into Vienna, where smallpox had prevailed severely for centuries. The
average number of persons who died at Vienna in each
of the first five years of this century was about
(35:25):
fourteen thousand, six hundred. Of these, eight hundred and thirty
five died of smallpox in the year eighteen hundred vaccination
being introduced and extensively adopted, The number of deaths from
smallpox felt of one hundred and sixty four in eighteen
o one to sixty one in eighteen o two to
(35:47):
twenty seven eighteen o three, while in eighteen o four
only two persons died, and these deaths were not occasioned
in Vienna, one being that of a boatman's trial who
caught the disease on the Danube, and the other child
sent to Vienna from a distant part of the Empire
already infected. Yet so long was the practice of vaccination
(36:10):
before it spread to an equal extent in England, that
nine hundred and fifty deaths occurred from smallpox in London
in the last three months only of eighteen o five.
Wherever he might happen to be, Jenna offered to vaccinate
gratuitously all poor persons, or applied to him at fixed times.
(36:31):
The people of one parish in the neighborhood of Cheltenham
held back, or the adjacent parishes accepted the new practice
to a large extent, But in one particular year, the
people at the reluctant parish arrived in large numbers to
claim vaccination for their children. On inquiry, it appeared that
smallpox had been among them, causing many deaths, while those
(36:55):
of their neighbors who had been vaccinated escaped. Yet it
was not this part argument which had been most influential,
but the fact that the cost of coffins and burial
for those who had died of small box became alarming
to the parish officials, and they were moved to urge
the people authoritatively to be vaccinated, and so saved the
(37:17):
parish expenses. From this time forward, for a number of years,
Jenna paid annual visits to London, remaining there a great
part of the season, incessantly occupied in vaccinating and giving
information and instruction on the subject verbally to many medical men,
in writing to a vast number of persons who corresponded
(37:39):
with him from all parts of the world. For everyone
who heard of the discovery and wanted to know more
about it, applied to the discoverer, and in social intercourse
with people of note, whom he never failed to impress pace,
eloquence and perspicuity. We cannot follow here the many incidents
which mark these years. Is intercourse with royal personages, the
(38:03):
addresses of congratulation and gratitude which received from all kinds
of localities and bodies of people. The foundation of the
Royal Genarian Society and the like. A few, however, must
find a place. A Doctor Pearson, to whom we shall
have to refer again, distinguished himself at first as an
(38:25):
ardent vaccinator, but subsequently he seems to have imagined to
himself entitled too much of the distinction which belonged to
doctor Jenner. And in order to secure this set upout
forming a public vaccine board in which the chief official
status was assigned to himself, he succeeded in obtaining the
(38:46):
patronage of the Duke of York and other notable persons.
Addressing Jenner on the subject in December seventeen ninety nine,
Pearson says, it occurs to me that it might not
be disagreeable to you to be an extra corresponding physician.
No expense is to be attached to your situation except
to guinea a year as a subscriber, and indeed I
(39:09):
think you ought to be exempt from that, as you
cannot send any patients. This was pretty well, one might think,
to be addressed to Jenner in one year after the
full publication of his discovery, he was to be shunted
off as an extra corresponding physician. Jenner's answer showed the
sense in which he regarded it. It appears to me
(39:33):
somewhat extraordinary that an institution formed upon so large a scale,
and that has for its object the inoculation of the
cow pox, should have been set on foot and almost
completely organized, without my receiving the most distant intimation of it.
For the present I must beg to leave, to decline
(39:54):
the honor intended me. After some discussion, most of the
royal and influence unchial personages who had promised to support
doctor Pearson's institution withdrew their names from it. At Brunn
in Moravia, where Count Francis Disama introduced in a widely
diffused vaccination, the people erected a temple dedicated to Jenner
(40:18):
and annually held a festival on his birthday. The Dowager
Empress of Russia first promoted vaccination in that empire, gave
the name Vaxinoff to the first child vaccinated. Had the
child taken to Saint Petersburg in one of her own
coaches placed in the Foundling hospital with a provision.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Settled on her for life.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
In eighteen o two, the Empress sent doctor Jenner a
letter signed with their own hand with a valuable diamond ring.
In fact, in all foreign countries vaccination was accepted with
more enthusiasm than in England. The proof of this may
readily be seen in doctor Baron's Life of Jenner. Meanwhile,
(41:04):
Jenna had expended a large amount of money out of
his fortune in visiting London, distributing information, giving up to
a very large extent his practice at Berkeley, and being
by no means recouped by profits of practice in London.
His friends, at length, seeing that he was now debarred
from obtaining from practice an adequate reward for his great discovery,
(41:28):
urged him to apply to Parliament.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
For some reward.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
This was at last done in eighteen o two, and
the petition was recommended very strongly by the King and
considered by a committee of the House of Commons. This
committee received evidence which unanimously affirmed the importance and practical
value of the discovery, and almost as unanimously agreed in
(41:52):
Jenner's originality. Admiral Berkeley, chairman of the committee, said that
Jenners was unquestionably the greatest discovery ever made for the
preservation of.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
The human species.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
A grand to ten thousand pounds was proposed on June second,
eighteen o two, and after a considerable discussion was carried
as against an amendment proposing to grant twenty thousand pounds.
It soon appeared, however, that the House of Commons had
failed to satisfy the sense of justice of the massive people,
(42:26):
as well as of the more eminent members of the
medical profession, and its grant to Jenner. Sir Gilbert Blaine,
in an address he drew up on the subject, said,
it is the universal voice of this as well as
other nations, that the remuneration given to doctor Jenner is
greatly inadequate to his desserts and to the magnitude that
(42:49):
the benefit his discovery has conferred on mankind. In January
eighteen o three was founded the Royal Genarian Institution, under
Royal patronage and with Jenner as President, to propagate vaccination
in London and elsewhere. This continued its operation for some
years with distinguished success, but doctor Walker, who had been
(43:12):
appointed President and oculator, soon began to deviate from Jenner's instructions.
And to adopt methods calculated, in Jenner's view, to bring
the practice into disrepute. Consequently, the dismissal of Walker was
called for, but was negative. In one division to which
Walker had brought in as voters, twenty persons only paid
(43:35):
their subscription on the day of voting. By such absurd
possibilities are the steps of benefactors to their race frequently beset.
The resignation of doctor Walker took place soon afterwards, but
the Generian Institution did not fully recover from the effects
of the dissension, and on the establishment of the National
(43:56):
Vaccine Institution in eighteen o eight, it became practically extinct.
Will it be credited that after the decisive parliamentary vote,
for more than two years, the Treasury delayed to pay
the money on one pretense and another, and when at
last it was paid, nearly one thousand pounds was deducted
(44:18):
on account of fees. Akin to this, though the amount
was trifling, was a demand made upon Jenna for five
pounds admission fieves when the Corporation of Dublin conferred upon
him the freedom of that city. Among the multitude the
testimonies of appreciation which Jenner received not the least interesting
(44:39):
is one which proceeded from the chiefs of the five
nations of Canadian Indians, the Mohawks, the Onna Davis, the Senecas,
the Oneidas, and the Cayucas.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Their addressed to him.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Ran As follows, brother, our father has delivered to us
the book you sent to instruct us how to use
the discovery which the Great Spirit made to you, whereby
the smallpox, that fatal enemy of our tribes may be
driven from the earth. We have to posited your book
in the hands of the man of skill, whom our
(45:13):
great Father employs to attend us when sick or wounded.
We shall not fail to teach our children to speak
the name of Jenna, and to thank the Great Spirit
for bestowing upon him so much wisdom and so much benevolence.
We send with this a belt and string of wampum,
in token of our acceptance of your precious gift, and
(45:34):
we beseech the Great Spirit to take care of you
in this world and in the land of spirits. In
eighteen o four, one of the most beautiful of the
Napoleon's series of metals was struck in commemoration of the
Emperor's estimate of the value of vaccination. He was so
sensible of Jenner's claims that he allowed his petitions for
(45:55):
the liberation of British subjects to prevail. Napoleon was about
to reject one peedition, but when Josephine uttered the name
of Jenna, he paused and exclaimed, Jenner, ah, we can
refuse nothing to that man. Perhaps no more striking example
of the extent to which Jenna's influence extended outside England
(46:18):
could be given than the fact that numbers of persons
traveled abroad or on shipboard bearing with them in preference
to a passport, a simple certificate signed Edward Jenner, testifying
that the persons were known to him and were traveling
in pursuit of health, or science, or other affairs unconnected
(46:38):
with war. When the Great War was over and the
Allied sovereigns visited London, Jenna was introduced, among others, to
the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia by
their special request. But in Great Britain there were many
things calculated to detract from Jena's perfect enjoyment. On very
(47:00):
occasions the British government were, by no means eager to
show him a respect and honor equal to that pay
to him abroad. When various government officials combined to launch
a national vaccine establishment, it was at first stated that
Jenna was to be director, with the stipulation that no
one was to take any part in the vaccinating department
(47:23):
who was not either nominated or approved by him. Yet
soon afterwards, out of eight persons nominated by Jenner, six
were rejected. Jenner himself was not admitted a member of
the board, which was composed exclusively of the four censors
of the College of Physicians and the Master and two
(47:43):
senior boardens of the College of Certaints. In consequence of
this treatment occurring in eighteen o eight, when vaccination was
so universally recognized, doctor Jenner resigned the post of Director,
but was succeeded by his friend mister Moore, who was
thoroughly in his confidence. A picture of Jenna's inward life
(48:04):
at this period, when the subject of a second Parliamentary
grant was being considered, may he be given from a
letter of his As for myself, I bear the fatigues
and worries of a public character better by far than
those who know the acuteness of my feelings. Could have
anticipated happy should I be to give up my laurels
(48:26):
for the repose of retirement. Did I not feel it
to be my duty to be in the world. I
certainly derived the most soothing consolation from my labors, the
benefits of which are felt the world over, but less appreciated,
perhaps in this island than in any other part of
the civilized world. Cheltenham is much improves since you saw it.
(48:49):
It is too gay for me. I still like my
breast to count Old Berkeley best. Where we are all
going in about a fortnight. Edward is growing tall and
is long looked over my head. Catherine, now eleven years old,
is a promising girl, and Robert, eight years old, is
just a chip off the old block. In July eighteen
(49:12):
o six, Lord Henry Petty, who had succeeded mister Pitt
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried a motion in the
Comments that the Royal College and Physicians should be requested
to inquire into the progress of vaccine inoculation. The College
made an inquiry, giving the fulloscope to the opponents of vaccination,
(49:34):
and finally reported that, considering the number respectability disinterested ness,
an extensive experience of its advocates, compared with the feeble
and imperfect testimonies of its view opposers, the value of
the practice seemed to establish as firmly as possible. In
July eighteen o seven, the subject was again debated in Parliament,
(49:59):
and a proposal to de grant ten thousand pounds was
rejected in favor of one mood by mister Edward Morris,
that twenty thousand pounds be granted to doctor Jenner. The
European inhabitants of India were from the first among the
most earnest in recognizing Jenna's merits, and afforded him in
(50:20):
many ways. Practical testimonies of their gratitude above four thousand
pounds were transmitted to him from Calcutta in eighteen o six,
and following years from Bombay two thousand pounds, and from
Madras nearly fourteen hundred pounds. The effects of incessant labors
were beginning seriously to tell on Jenner's health when in
(50:43):
eighteen ten he lost his eldest son from consumption in
his twenty first year. This event preyed much on his
mind and left him an estate occasion in great anxiety
to his friends In the same year he lost his
firm friend, the Earl of Berkeley, and his beloved sister,
Missus Black. Under these troubles, he felt the more acutely
(51:05):
the calumnious attacks to which he was constantly subjected. Doctor
Perry of Bath, writing to him about this time, says,
for Heaven's sake, think no more of these wasps who
hum and buss about you, and whom your indifference in
silence will please into utter oblivion. Let me again entreat
(51:25):
you not to give them one moment's consideration. Opus exigesty,
airy parentius. The great business is accomplished, and the blessing
is ready for those who choose to avail themselves of it.
And with regard to those who rejected, the evil will
be on their own heads. In eighteen eleven occurred the
(51:46):
first well authenticated case of small box in a boy
vaccinated by Jenner the Honorable Robert Grosvenor. The disease became
severe and threatened death when all at once the latest
ages were passed through rapidly and a good recovery was made.
Other vaccinated children in this family were exposed to the
(52:08):
contagion and did not suffer. This seemed every reason, as
Jenna explained to ascribe the failure of protection in the
first case to a peculiarity of constitution which would probably
have exposed the patient to a second attack of smallpox.
In fact, doctor Jenna had vaccinated the child when in
(52:29):
weak health at a month old. Lady Grosvenner was timid
and prevailed on him contrary to his usual practice to
make one puncture only, and the pustule that resulted was
deranged in its progress by being robbed by the nurse. Nevertheless,
the case created much alarm and excitement, and greatly axhilearrated
(52:52):
the anti vaxinists. Jenna's simple answer was to admit the fact,
alleging that if ten fifty or a hunt at such
events should occur, they would be bounced a hundred times
over by cases of second attacks of small box. I
have ever considered the verioldess and the vaccine radically and
essentially the same, as the inoculation of the former has
(53:16):
been known to fail an instances so numerous it would
be very extraordinary if the latter should always be exempt
from failure. It would tend to invalidate my early doctrine
on this point. A letter of Jeneit to doctor Baron
on this subject exhipt as perhaps the utmost degree of
(53:36):
irritation that he showed the town is a fool, an idiot,
he remarks, and will continue in this red hot, hissing
state about this affair till something else starts up to
draw aside its attention. I am determined to lock up
my brains and think no more pro bono publical. It
(53:57):
is my intention to collect all the cases I can
of small books after supposed security from their disease. In
eighteen thirteen, the degree of m d was voted to
Jenner by the University of Oxford. It was expected that
the London College of Physicians would have followed suit by
admitting him to membership, but they exacted a full examination
(54:20):
which Jenner, at his age and with his reputation, could
not be expected to submit too. In the summer of
eighteen fourteen, Jenna visited London for the last time, being
presented to the CSAR and having numerous interviews with his sister,
the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg. On the thirteenth September eighteen fifteen,
(54:42):
Missus Jenner died, a calamity which most deeply afflicted doctor
Jenner and seemed to mark his retirement from active public life.
It is much to be regretted that he did not
live to complete and publish his own final account and
matured convictions as to the suitable conditions of vaccination and
(55:02):
the modifications and imperfections to which it was liable. This
engaged much of his attention in his later years, but
his inquiries were interrupted by illness and by family affliction.
His later years were made painful by extreme nervous sensitiveness,
and he had several attacks which foreboded death by apoplexy,
(55:25):
which ultimately occurred on twenty sixth January eighteen twenty three.
He was buried at Berkeley by the side of his
wife on third February. Jenna's Nature, says his biographer, was mild, unobtrusive, unambitious.
The singleness of his heart and his genuine modesty graced
(55:46):
and adorned his splendid reputation. Had those who opposed him
known how little of selfishness, vanity, or pride entered into
his composition, he made no answer to his versions.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
All the friends who watched.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Him longest and have seen most of his mind and
of his conduct with one voice declare that there was
something about him which they never witnessed in any other man.
The first things that a stranger would remark with the gentleness,
the simplicity, the artlessness of his manner. There was a
total absence of all ostentation or display, so much so
(56:26):
that in the ordinary intercourse of society he appeared as
a person who had no claims to notice. He was
perfectly unreserved and free from all guile. He carried his
heart and his mind so openly, so undisguisedly, that all.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Might read them. You could not converse with him.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
You could not enter his house nor his study, without
seeing what sort of man dwelt there. The objects of
his studies generally lay scattered around him, as he used
often to say himself, seemingly in chaotic confusion. Fossils and
other specimens of natural history, anatomical preparations, books, papers, letters,
(57:10):
all presented themselves in strange disorder, but every article bore
the impress of the genius that presided there. The fossils
were marked by small pieces of paper pasted on them,
having their names and the places where they were found
inscribed in his own plain and distinct handwriting. He seemed
(57:30):
to have no secrets of any kind, and atwithstanding a
long experience with the world, he acted to the last
as if all mankind were trustworthy and free from selfishness.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
As himself.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
He had a working head, being never idle, and accumulated
a great store of original observations. These treasures he imparted
most generously and liberally. Indeed, his chief pleasure seemed to
be imploring out the ample riches of his mind to
every one who enjoyed his acquaintance. He had often reason
(58:05):
to lament this unbounded confidence, but such ungrateful returns neither
chilled his ardor nor ruffled his temper. Such was the
man to whom the world was indebted for vaccination. No
court or metropolitan physician, no university student, but a country doctor,
a man of science and of benevolence, whose name is
(58:29):
undying and of Section eight
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