To the Editors of the Medical and Phyfical Journal. GENTLEMEN, IN the Sherborne Mercury for May 5, is the following correspondence, which, I doubt not, will prove interest ing to your readers. "THE RAVAGES OF THE SMALL-POX. "To Dr. CREASER, Bath. "DEAR SIR, "The small-pox is raging with unexampled mortality, in consequence of inoculation, in the neighbourhood of Stogursey; and, among the few who have been prevailed on to submit to this dreadful disease, I am informed that eight or nine have fallen victims. "You will startle at hearing, that professional men dip their lancets in this cruel poison; and communicate an uncontroulable disease to their fellow creatures. You will be still more astonished at finding, that the minds of some respectable inhabitants are still warped by prejudice against the cow-pock, as a preventive of this scourge of the human race; but your wonder will cease when you learn, that a story is in circulation, and believed by many peo ple, of a lady who has been corresponding with the immortal Jenner, whose opinion she represented as repugnant to the reputation of the cow-pock; and this as freely as may be, declaring that Dr. Jenner himself has no great opinion of the practice. "Is this possible? Are these the sentiments of that great man? If so, he must be strangely altered since last summer; when I had the pleasure of meeting you at his hospitable mansion. However, it has had a considerable effect on the minds of the ignorant and unwary; and the example of this lady, who has had her own children inoculated for the small-pox, is an additional motive to induce others to follow it. "I have inoculated two thousand and seventeen for the cow-pock, without a single instance of failure, or any alarmiug occurrence: and there can be no doubt, where medical men are attentive, and procure proper vaccine virus, of its proving the greatest blessing ever bestowed by heaven on man. C4 "But "But I believe there are some inveterate enemies of this practice through ignorance, and others through obstinacy; who will not suffer any evidence, however strong, to impress their minds with conviction; and who will not be guided by any experience, however extensive. I trust you will communicate to our friend this report concerning him, as I am not certain of his address at this time; and I will thank you for an answer, as soon as you receive his, I am, &c. Wiveliscombe Dispensary, April 7, 1806. "DEAR SIR, HENRY SULLY." "To HENRY SULLY, Esq. "In consequence of your information, that a report had been industriously circulated in the vicinity of Stogursey, purporting that Dr. Jenner had abandoned his opinion concering vaccination, I addressed a letter to him on the subject; and I am authorised by him to declare, that this story is totally unfounded; that he never, either in conversation or correspondence, gave the smallest hint of any alteration of opinion on the subject, but that, on the contrary, every day produces new evidence of the security and advantages of vaccination, both here and in foreign countries. "Had I not had ample experience, for many years, of the industry and malignity of the opponents of vaccination, I should wonder at the existence of so bare-faced a fabrication as that in question. A very small portion of the active efforts, which are made by the enemies of mankind, to perpetuate one of its greatest scourges, the smallpox, would, if properly directed, be sufficient for its extinction. "How base and criminal is this conduct! and how consistent, in point of atrocity, are the means with the end! I have the pleasure to communicate to you the thanks of the Royal Somerset Jennerian Society, for your successful endeavours, in the prosecution of their plan; and I am also commissioned by our friend Dr. Jenner, to present you with his acknowledgments for the same. I am, &c. Bath, April 13, 1806. THOMAS CREASER." This correspondence is an incontestible proof, in addition to many others which I have already laid before the public, that the opponents of vaccination do not hesitate to invent, as well as to circulate, the most gross and impudent falsehoods. This has been their practice, from the earliest periods of vaccination, to the present hour; and these falsehoods they have propagated, and still propagate, in every form, ne quid inausum, Aut intentatum, scelerisve dolive relinquant. Among others, of a similar kind to the foregoing, are the following, which I published in the year 1801; and which are a sufficient refutation of that other bare-faced and impudent falsehood, so often advanced in the face of day, and already so often refuted, namely, that the friends of vaccination have never instituted any inquiry, in order to ascertain the truth. See Treatise on the Cow-pox, p. 269. A man, whose wife had the confluent small-pox, requested Mr. Kelson of Sevenoaks, to inoculate him for the cow-pock, with which he complied, and desired to see him again in three days; but the man did not come again till after the expiration of a week, when he was inoculated again. This was on the tenth day, from the time when the small-pox had appeared on his wife.-The se cond inoculation took place; but too late to prevent the small-pox. It was, however, mitigated; for Mr. Kelson remarked, that the pustules turned much sooner than he had ever known them in any other instance, where the eruption was equally copious. This case, however, gave rise to several false reports, which were at that time, as others of a similar kind have been since, countenanced by a despicable cabal; who have undesignedly been instrumental in promoting a cause which they meant to injure; and have reason to repent the discussion they provoked. Then, as well as now, it will appear from the same publication, p. 270, they propagated a report that Dr. Jenner himself entertained a doubt of the efficacy of vaccination; and that his own servant, whom he vaccinated, had since died of the small-pox.-This report having been industriously circulated, and even mentioned in different medical societies, with some degree of confidence, I wrote to Dr. Jenner, in order 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-pox in preventing the small-pox, is entirely 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 again been subjected to the same test. Some have had sheets wrapped round them, in which those had lain, who had laboured under 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." Such were the rumours at that period, and such were the refutations of those rumours; yet, among the opponents of vaccination, persons have not been wanting, who assert, with the most unblushing effrontery, that no inquiry has been made into the subject. The following is another specimen of the falsehoods, which are even now in circulation. A woman at Kensington, whose children had the itch, lately spread a report, that they had an eruption in consequence of the cowpock. Having heard this report from a gentleman in Hanover Square, who is a member of parliament, and whose opinion must have great weight with the public, I inquired into it; and found it totally destitute of foundation. The children had indeed an eruption; but it was neither more nor less than the itch; and the mother confessed, that she had procured ointments from Mr. Faithhorn for this very disease. In order to conceal its real nature, she not only asserted, that her children had eruptions from the cow-pock, while she treated them as the itch; but also denied that her other children had the same disorder, which, on examination, I discovered to be a gross and palpable falsehood. In the publication before quoted, p. 82, I long ago observed, "that such persons as had not seen the works of Jenner, nor examined what was written in favour of vaccination, had amused themselves with a newspaper, or a magazine; and poisoned their minds with the falsehoods there inserted, falsehoods known to be such by their own authors." I also observed, "that some of the unfavourable reports raised against the practice, were palpable forgeries; that the name of the person, perhaps, was mentioned, but not the residence; that no signature was affixed, or only such as would injure the best cause." The same course has still been pursued, and the same practice prevailed, from that period to the present hour. In the same publication, p. 36, I remarked, that were I to recite all the arguments brought forward by Dr. Jenner alone, to prove that vaccine virus, in its perfect state, is a security against the small-pox, no unprejudiced reader would deny that I had sufficiently established my position;" but I also remarked, that "artful and designing men had deluded the public by false representations ;" and "that" one of them, when repeatedly called on, actually refused to give such evidence of the truth of his assertions, as he had publicly pledged himself to give; and shrunk from all inquiry." I also stated, that some few respectable practitioners had been deluded by false reports, and expressed their apprehensions in a becoming manner; but that there are certain persons in the lower order of the profession who rise up in arms against it,— Omnigenûmque deûm monstra, et latrator Anubis, Contra Neptunum et Venerem, contraque Minervam, This was published in the year 1801, long before the question was agitated in parliament, yet it has been asserted again and again, with the most unblushing effrontery, by the opponents of vaccination, that the learned Mr. Goldson was the only person, except Dr. Moseley, who opposed the practice till that time. So ignorant are those gentlemen of what has been done by their own fraternity; or so desirous are they to forget, and that the world should also forget, who they are, and what they have done. With regard to the forgeries against vaccination, I have adduced authorities on that head, in my answer to Doctor Moseley, in addition to those which I long ago adduced in my other publications. When I printed the account of the cases fabricated against the practice, by the second great antivaccinist, that champion of falsehood was still living, and still publishing other forgeries in this and other journals. The manner in which he at length terminated his unfortunate career, will, it is hoped, prove a warning to others, who are now treading in his steps. These gentlemen are always pretending, though they know it to be false, that the friends of vaccination have never instituted any inquiry into the merits of the practice. In opposition to this bold and unfounded assertion, I shall here subjoin the free and unsolicited testimony of an author, who not being engaged in the busy scene of this metropolis, nor apparently having any particular inte rest |