ADVERTISEMENT
It is readily acknowledged that nothing new can be advanced on a subject which has already been so fully investigated, and so ably defended by many gentlemen, of the highest respectability, in the medical profession; yet having been frequently requested to add my testimony to that of others, for the following reasons I readily comply.
FIGURE 1—
The title page of Vindicated and Recommended, reprinted with permission from the British Library.
First
I have it in my power to speak to matters of fact, perhaps more so than many of the most active among the faculty themselves, having inoculated near Five Thousand subjects with my own hand, exclusive of many more who have been vaccinated between Dr. Walker and myself, at the School Room of this Chapel, under the patronage of the Jennerian Society.
Secondly
It appears that a small publication in a concise and plain stile [sic], and at a low price, containing an abridgment of what has hitherto been published, was greatly needed for the general good.
Thirdly
As a mere hint from the pulpit in different places, has frequently produced some hundreds of customers, from a kind persuasion that I could have no self-interested motives whatever, I wish to try what next can be done from the press; and as I am told my name has had some influence over the minds and prejudices of many, I am in hopes that I may be able to prevail with others, to resist the stratagems of a few interested and artful men, against such a weight of authority and evidence, as perhaps was never resisted before.
R. HILL.
Surry-Chapel,
March 25th, 1806 (p. i-ii)
COW-POCK INOCULATION, &C.
The advocates for Christianity are, of course, the friends of humanity; consequently, every discovery which ameliorates human woe, well deserves the patronage of all those who wish to exemplify the truly Christian mind. Christian ministers, therefore, should prove their diligence above all others, how much they wish to abound in every good word and work, as it relates both to the bodies and souls of men.
When first the advantages of the Cow-pock inoculation became the subject of a serious investigation, I confess I was not a little staggered that so slight an infection, so safely and so easily communicated should prove a protection against one so dangerous, so loathsome and so destructive to the human race; but having the honor, and such I really call it, of a personal acquaintance with that skillful and able physician, Dr. Jenner, from his known integrity and ability, a strong prepossession in favor of a discovery promoted by him, naturally took place upon my mind. . . . I at once conceived it my duty to promote the discovery to the utmost of my power: the ground I took I was now sure was both rational and substantial, and plain before me; and I immediately discovered that after a very few cautionary observations upon the mere communication of the disease, and a knowledge of the proper formation of the Cow-pock pustule, any person with a steady hand, though totally ignorant of every branch of surgical or medical knowledge, might commence as safe and as complete an inoculator, as the first surgeon or ablest physician in the land.
As I aim at brevity, I immediately come to matters of fact, by giving a plain statement of what has fallen within my own knowledge as an inoculator for the public good. My first efforts commenced early in the summer of 1804, in and about Wotton-Underedge, in Gloucestershire, where I possess a retired habitation; that neighborhood being rather populous, I had near twelve hundred applications. At Hillsley, a village about 3 miles from that place, the Small-pox began to make its appearance; one person I am told fell a sacrifice to the disease, and another did but just escape with his life; this drove hundreds to me for protection, and the Small-pox was immediately nonexistent in those parts; and I solemnly protest that not a single sore arm, dangerous eruption, or any other calamity was heard of from any quarter. . . . Strange that this beastly disease should have such a wonderful contrary effect in the latitude of Gloucestershire, to what it has, at least in the brains and books of some physicians, in the vicinage of the metropolis (p. 3–6)!!!
I present before the reader some of those notorious impositions upon the public credulity, which have made their appearance against vaccination. They are the most gross and palpable I ever met with. The public are much indebted to those authors who have taken the pains to expose them.
Mr. Ring, in the first volume of his treatise on the Cow-pock, published in the year 1801, informs us a report was propagated, that Dr. Jenner himself entertained doubts of the efficacy of the Cow-pock as a preventive of the Small-pox; and that his own servant, whom he had inoculated for the Cow-pock, afterward had the Small-pox and died. This report having been circulated in different medical societies with some degree of confidence, Mr. Ring wrote to Dr. Jenner, to know what degree of credit it was entitled to, and received the following answer:
“The whole of the assertion you heard at the Medical Society, respecting my entertaining doubts of the efficacy of the Cow-pock in preventing the Small-pox, is entirely false; and must have been invented by some malevolent person, with a base design. The idea I ever entertained of the security of the patient, has been strengthened by my late experiments. Many of those who were inoculated with variolous matter, have been again subjected to the same test. Some have had sheets wrapped round them, in which persons had lain, who had full burdens of the Small-pox. Some have had the matter thrust up their nostrils; and others have been put into beds with those who had the Small-pox in its highest state of infection; but they all resisted its action (p. 11).”
Every honest man must confess, that [variolous inoculation] is but at best a bad remedy for a terrible disease, and that through the infection communicated to others thereby, the Small-pox has actually been attended with more fatal consequences since the introduction of inoculation, than ever existed before; and no wonder, - What poor family can ever dare to venture upon the expense? How can they find room or convenience (especially in crouded [sic] cities, where the disease is always the most fatal,) for the needed accommodations, for such a length of time, during the slow and painful progress of this terrible plague? How can they spare the loss of their time? And who can they expect will wait on them, while they are debarred from waiting upon themselves, without such a reward as they never can afford; and who is to pay for medical attendance, or are they to lie and rot without mercy?—What, then, are the consequences? They must take their chance; some of them escape favorably, others suffer dreadfully; deprived perhaps of the invaluable blessing of their sight; while one in 6, after a slow 3 weeks progress of this loathsome disease, is sent a corrupted victim to the grave.
Oh what dreadful consequences the poor of the nation are left to suffer in such an extreme degree; though such an effectual remedy is so near at hand!
It is in vain to expatiate against the artful stratagems, the self-interested motives of a Moseley, a Birch, a Squirrell, and others of their antivaccinarian satellites, who can dance around the destructive altar of variolous inoculation, by their wanton pretentions to sportive wit; while the lives of thousands are at stake (p. 27–28).
We will, however, examine the 3 principal arguments which are urged [by antivaccination activists], in favor of their destructive inoculation.
First, that vaccination does not infallibly secure from the Small-pox.
It seems, however, that all the cases collected together, whether real or supposed, and republished again and again, after they have been contradicted, scarcely amount to one in a thousand; while all attempts to communicate the Small-pox, either by infection or inoculation, are so strongly in favor of the vaccine protection from this terrible disease, that the enemies of vaccination cannot maintain their cause on this ground alone.
Their next argument, therefore, is, that vaccination will only secure for a certain time: wisely pretending to foretell what is to be before it is; it happens, however, that Dr. Jenner grounded his plan of the vaccine inoculation, by observing, that those who were subjected when young to the vaccine disease, continued to resist the Small-pox all the days of their lives. . . .
Their third objection, which I now mean to obviate. The Cow-pock inoculator, is one of those wild thoughtless creatures, who under the influence of planetary madness, communicates to his fellow creatures, the venom of a beastly disease, whereby he poisons the constitution, and produces contagions the most frightful and filthy, and which were never heard of before: hence the Cow-pock itch, the Cow-pock mange, and Cow-pock ulcers . . . what an insult is this to public credulity (p. 30–32) !!!
[Dr. Squirrell’s] pamphlet is now before me, containing no less than TWENTY NINE CASES inimical to the discovery [of smallpox vaccination], out of hundreds of thousands that are still preserved. Oh the blessing of the Jennerian inoculation! did ever man stand so much like an angel of God, as an instrument in the hand of divine providence between the living and the dead, till this plague was stayed!* [*Numbers 16:48] his twenty nine cases are not therefore worth a moment’s thought (p. 53).
It is on these accounts that I not only at first found it necessary to turn practitioner myself, but to instruct others also how to use the lancet, and how to discover the real nature of the disease; and supposing that ministers having an influence over their congregations, might more easily remove prejudices than others, I have always esteemed it my duty to urge this work of mercy peculiarly on them; and in this, I thank God, I have successfully prevailed (p. 59). . . . After having said so much I need not add, that next to attending upon the functions of my own calling, I never undertook a work so satisfactory to my mind; nor can I sufficiently urge on others no longer to wait a single moment in hopes that the professional men will first begin; let our exertions be universal, immediate, and zealous, and I am very sure a death by the Small-pox will be brought forward as a very rare instance indeed; in short, I believe that no one disease will be less fatal than that which is now so much the dreaded scourge of the human race (p. 65).