A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) by Charles Creighton
141. In those cases there was no inoculation by puncture or otherwise.
3450 words | Chapter 97
[885] _Miscell. Curiosa s. Ephemer. Med.-Phys. Acad. Nat. Curios._ Decuria
I., An. 2, Obs. CLXV. 1671. D. Thomae Bartholini, “Febris ex
Imaginatione.” Scholion by D. Henr. Vollgnad, Vratislaviae practicus.
[886] _Miscell. Curiosa_, _l. c._ 1677.
[887] See Drage, _Pyretologia_. Lond. 1665.
[888] Nuremberg, 1662, p. 529.
[889] La Condamine cites Bartholin’s essay on Transplantation as if it
really contained the germ of inoculation, which it does not, the single
reference in it to smallpox being in a passage where the contagion of
that, as well as of plague, syphilis and dysentery, is said to be capable
of being turned aside from one to another.
[890] Drage (_Pyretologia_) gives a case where an ague passed from one
person to another in the fumes of blood drawn in phlebotomy. He says also
(_Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft_, 1665, p. 21) that a witch
could be made to take back a disease by scratching her and drawing blood.
[891] _De Transplantatione Morborum._ Hafniae, 1673, p. 24.
[892] _De Febribus_, u. s. In the plague, a live cock applied to the botch
was thought to draw the venom; the cock was then to be buried. Also crusts
of hot ryeloaf hung in the room where one had died of plague absorbed the
venom. Gabelhover, _The Boock of Physicke_, Dort, 1599, p. 298. Bread was
used for the same purpose in fevers as late as 1765. Muret, _Mém. par la
Société Econom. de Berne_, 1766.
[893] _Dissertationes in Inoculationem Variolarum_, a J. à Castro, G.
Harris, et A. le Duc. Lugd. Bat. 1722.
[894] Gardiner’s _Triall of Tabacco_. London, 1610, fol. 38.
[895] _Ibid._ fol. 43. _The City Remembrancer_, 1769, a work claiming to
be Gideon Harvey’s, says that in the Great Plague of London, 1665, some
low persons contracted the French pox of purpose to keep off the infection
of plague.
[896] _Inquiry how to prevent the Smallpox_, Chester, 1785:--“No care was
taken to prevent the spreading; but on the contrary there seemed to be a
general wish that all the children might have it.” Cited from Mr Edwards,
surgeon, of Upton, near Chester. Again (_Sketch of a Plan, &c._, 1793, p.
491), “They neither feared it nor shunned it. Much more frequently, by
voluntary and intentional intercourse, they endeavoured to catch the
infection.”
[897] _History of Physic_, Lond. 1725-26, II. 288. This was written at a
time when the novelty of inoculation had passed off, and may be taken as
Freind’s mature opinion. Douglass, of Boston, writing in 1730, implies
that Freind’s objections had been overcome; which may mean no more than he
says in general: “Yet from repeated tryals the Anti-Inoculators do now
acknowledge that inoculation, generally speaking, is a more easy way of
undergoing the smallpox.” Condamine, in his French essay of 1755, counts
Freind among the original supporters of inoculation, and ridicules the
opposition to it. Munk, in citing the title of Wagstaffe’s _Letter to Dr
Freind showing the danger and uncertainty of Inoculating the Smallpox_
(London, 1722), omits the words “to Dr Freind,” at the same time
describing the pamphlet as “specious.” There seems no reason to doubt that
Freind shared Wagstaffe’s views.
[898] Hecquet, of Paris, who is supposed to have been the original of Dr
Sangrado in ‘Gil Bias,’ gave the following reasons against inoculation
(_Raisons de doutes contre l’Inoculation_): “Its antiquity is not
sufficiently ascertained: the operation rests upon false facts: it is
unjust, void of art, destitute of rules: ... it doth not prevent the
natural smallpox: ... it bears no likeness to physic, and savours strongly
of magic.”
[899] James Jurin, M.D., _Account of the Success of Inoculation_, 1724, p.
3.
[900] G. Baker, M.D., _Oratio Harveiana_, 1761, p. 24.
[901] _Sloane, Phil. Trans._ XLIX. 516.
[902] They are given in Maitland’s _Vindication_, 1722, and in one of
Jurin’s papers.
[903] In regard to the last of them, when Frewen in 1759 was controverting
the fancy of Boerhaave and Cheyne that smallpox might be hindered from
coming on in a person exposed to contagion by a timely use of the Aethiops
mineral, he said there was a fallacy in the evidence, because many persons
ordinarily escape smallpox “who had been supposed to be in the greatest
danger of taking it.” Huxham also pointed out that a person might be
susceptible at one time but not at another, or insusceptible altogether;
and the elder Heberden wrote: “Many instances have occurred to me which
show that one who had never had the smallpox may safely associate, and
even be in the same bed with a variolous patient for the first two or
three days of the eruption without any danger of receiving the infection.”
William Heberden, sen., M.D., _Commentaries on Disease_, 1802, p. 437.
[904] Dr James Jurin was educated at Cambridge, and elected a fellow of
Trinity College. He became a schoolmaster at Newcastle, where he also gave
scientific lectures. Coming to London, with a Leyden medical degree, he
devoted himself to the Newtonian mathematics and was made one of the
secretaries of the Royal Society, Newton being the president. He was one
of the original physicians of the new hospital founded in the Borough by
Guy, the rich bookseller. He made a fortune by medical practice, and was
elected president of the College of Physicians a few weeks before he died.
In medicine his name is associated with the inoculation statistics, the
idea of which, as well as most of the substance, he got from Nettleton,
and with “Jurin’s Lixivium Lithontripticum,” or solvent for the stone, the
idea of which belonged originally to Mrs Johanna Stevens, and was sold by
her to the State for five thousand pounds on the 16th of June, 1739, the
prescriptions having been made public in the _London Gazette_ of 19th
June. On the 15th of December, 1744, Jurin was called to see the Earl of
Orford (Sir Robert Walpole), who was suffering from stone, either renal or
vesical. He began administering his alkaline solvent, “four times stronger
than the strongest capital soap-lye,” and during the six weeks of his
attendance had given his patient thirty-six ounces of it. Horace Walpole
made him angry by arguing on the medicine: “It is of so great violence
that it is to split a stone when it arrives at it, and yet it is to do no
damage to all the tender intestines through which it must first pass. I
told him I thought it was like an admiral going on a secret expedition of
war with instructions which are not to be opened till he arrives in such a
latitude.” (_Letters of Horace Walpole_, Cunningham, I. 339.) His services
were at length dispensed with, and the earl, whose case was probably
hopeless before, died in a few weeks. A war of pamphlets followed, Ranby,
the serjeant-surgeon, maintaining that the patient had “died of the
lixivium.” Mead, also, expressed himself strongly upon the attempt to use
a modification of Mrs Stevens’s solvent.
[905] The fatalities are given somewhat fully in Jurin’s annual accounts
of the _Success of Inoculation_, 1723-27.
[906] John Wreden, body-surgeon to the Prince of Wales, author of _An
Essay on the Inoculation of the Smallpox_ (Lond. 1779), may also be
counted among those who gave a more real smallpox. See especially his
cases at Hanover.
[907] H. Newman, “Way of Proceeding in the Smallpox Inoculation in New
England.” _Phil. Trans._ XXXII. (1722), p. 33.
[908] Thomas Nettleton, Letter to Whitaker. _Ibid._ p. 39.
[909] _Phil. Trans._ _l. c._ p. 46. A remark follows which is not quite
clear: “There is one observation which I have made, tho’ I would not yet
lay any great stress upon it, that in families where any have been
inoculated, those who have been afterwards seized never had an ill sort of
smallpox, but always recovered very well.”
[910] _Phil. Trans._ 1722, p. 209. Dated from Halifax, 16 Dec. 1722.
[911] Dr William Douglass to Dr Cadwallader Colden, 28 July, 1721, and 1
May, 1722, in _Massachu. Hist. Soc. Collections_, Series 4, vol. II. pp.
166-9. Also _A Dissertation concerning Inoculation of Smallpox_. By W.
D[ouglass]. Boston, 1730; and _A Practical Essay concerning the Smallpox_.
By William Douglass, M.D. Boston, 1730.
[912] Boylston, _Account of the Smallpox inoculated in New England_.
London, 1726.
[913] This was admitted, in a manner, for the great Boston epidemic of
1752, by the Rev. T. Prince, _Gent. Magaz._ Sept. 1753, p. 414. The
epidemic attacked 5545 (in a population of 15,684), and cut off 569. The
numbers inoculated were 2124 (including 139 negroes), of which number 30
died and were included in the total of 569. Many of the inoculated, says
Prince, were not careful to avoid catching the infection in the natural
way; “for I have known some, as soon as inoculated, receive visits from
their friends, who had been with the sick of the same disease and ’tis
likely carried infection with them; it seems highly probable that the
inoculated received the infection from them into their vitals.” It may be
supposed that the inoculated who were more careful formed a part of the
1843 who “moved out of town.” More than a third of the population took
natural smallpox in some four months (April to July) of 1752, more than a
third had had it before, a severe epidemic having occurred in 1730 as well
as in 1721.
[914] Clinch, _Rise and Progress of the Smallpox, with an Appendix to
prove that Inoculation is no Security from the Natural Smallpox_. 2nd ed.
1725.
[915] C. Deering, M.D., _An Account of an Improved Method of treating the
Smallpox_. Nottingham, 1736, p. 27. Woodville appears to accept this case
as authentic.
[916] Pierce Dod, M.D., F.R.S., _Several Cases in Physic_. London, 1746.
[917] Kirkpatrick, and after him Woodville, treat the alleged experience
of Jones as pure fiction.
[918] La Condamine, of Paris, an amateur enthusiast for inoculation, did
all he could to upset the case. He got his friend Dr Maty, foreign
secretary of the Royal Society, to make inquiry through the British
ambassador to the Porte. It happened that Angelo Timoni, son of the
inoculator, was at that time an interpreter at the British Embassy; he
applied to his mother, who re-affirmed the facts as to the inoculation of
her child in infancy, and her death by the natural smallpox twenty-four
years after. The only defence left was that the inoculation had not been
done by Dr Timoni’s own hand. La Condamine, _Mémoires pour servir à
l’Histoire de l’Inoculation_. 2me Mémoire. Paris, 1768.
[919] Rush to Lettsom, Philadelphia, 17 June, 1808, in Pettigrew’s
_Memoirs of Lettsom_, III. 201.
[920] Fuller, in his _Exanthematalogia_, makes a somewhat late defence of
it in 1729. But Richard Holland, who published in 1730 _A Short View of
the Smallpox_, does not mention inoculation, and in the following passage
he writes of smallpox as if the extravagant hopes of the preceding years
had vanished: “This last season having afforded too many melancholy
instances of the fatal effects of the distemper, though under the care and
direction of the most eminent physicians, since the disease,
notwithstanding the plainness of its symptoms, is become the _opprobrium
medicinae_,” _&c._ (p. 3).
[921] _Phil. Trans._ Jan.-March, 1722: “The way of proceeding in the Small
Pox inoculated in New England.” Communicated by Henry Newman, Esq. of the
Middle Temple, p. 33, § 3: “Yet we find the variolous matter fetched from
those that have the inoculated smallpox altogether as agreeable and
effectual as any other.”
[922] _An Essay on Inoculation: occasioned by the Smallpox being brought
into S. Carolina in the year 1738._ By J. Kilpatrick. London, 1743, p. 50.
The essay had been “first printed in South Carolina,” the London edition
of 1743 having an Appendix dealing historically with the Charleston
epidemic of 1738.
[923] Thomas Frewen, M.D., _The Practice and Theory of Inoculation_.
London, 1749.
[924] J. Kirkpatrick, M.D., _Analysis of Inoculation, with a consideration
of the most remarkable appearances in the Small Pocks_. Lond. 1754.
[925] Kirkpatrick, _Analysis_.
[926] La Condamine, _Mémoires pour servir, &c._ (Deuxième Discours), 1768,
p. 91. It matters little what Lobb may or may not have done. But it does
not appear that Boerhaave ever tried to get rid of the eruption of
smallpox by means of drugs. In the chapter of his _Aphorisms_, “De
Variolis” (§ 1392) he says that he imagines a specific might be found, in
the class of antidotes, to correct and destroy the variolous virus,
indicating antimony and mercury as likely agents for the purpose owing to
certain physical properties of the medicinal preparations of them. Ruston
(_An Essay on Inoculation_, 3rd ed. 1768) says that Boerhaave, who died in
1738, “never practised it himself; nor seems to have understood the manner
in which these medicines operate to produce their salutary effects.”
However they were known as the Boerhaavian antidotes to smallpox, and were
used in Rhode Island, it is said with great success and as a secret.
Ruston used them in England, and discovered by an analysis that Sutton’s
secret powders were the same. They seem also to have been used by Cheyne
to prevent the development of smallpox in persons who had been exposed to
contagion and had presumably taken the contagion. Frewen, in 1759,
published a pamphlet to show the improbability of antimony and mercury
having any such action, and the fallacy of the claims made for their
success.
[927] The Duchess gave the following account of her own case (_Gent.
Magaz._ Nov. 1765, p. 495, sent by Gatti to a friend in London): “On the
12th of March, 1763, I was inoculated for the smallpox, and about four or
five days afterwards a redness appeared round the orifice, which Mons.
Gatti called an inflammation, and assured me was a sign that the smallpox
had taken effect: these were the very terms he used. The redness or
inflammation increased every day, and about the seventh or eighth day, the
wound began to suppurate. There appeared also about the wound six small
risings, or pimples, which successively suppurated and disappeared the
next day. Mons. Gatti, upon their appearance, again assured me that the
smallpox had taken effect. In the afternoon of the eleventh or twelfth day
of my inoculation I felt a general uneasiness and emotion, a pain in my
head and my back, and about my heart, in consequence of which I went to
bed sooner than ordinary. I slept well, however, and rose without any
disorder in the morning. These symptoms Mons. Gatti assured me were the
forerunners of the eruption. The next day a pretty large rising or pimple
appeared in my forehead, turned white, and then died away, leaving a mark
which continued many days.
“The wound in my arm continued to suppurate seven or eight days, and Mons.
Gatti now assured me that I had nothing to fear from the smallpox; and
upon this assurance I relied without the least doubt, and continued in
perfect confidence of my security till the natural smallpox appeared. I
continued very well during the whole time of my inoculation, except one
day, as mentioned above, and I went out every day.
“Monmorency, D. de Boufflers.”
[928] Gibbon’s _Autobiography_. It was to Dr Maty that Gibbon, in 1759,
submitted his French essay on the Study of Literature, having had a fair
copy of it transcribed by one of the French prisoners at Petersfield. Of
Maty he says: “His reputation was justly founded on the eighteen volumes
of the _Journal Britannique_, which he had supported almost alone, with
perseverance and success. This humble though useful labour, which had once
been dignified by the genius of Bayle and the learning of Le Clerc, was
not disgraced by the taste, the knowledge and the judgment of Maty.”
[929] Angelo Gatti, M.D., _New Observations on Inoculation_. Translated
from the French by M. Maty. Lond. 1768. The French edition was published
at Brussels in 1767.
[930] John Andrew, M.D., _The Practice of Inoculation impartially
considered_. Dated 17 June, 1765, Exeter, p. 61.
[931] _La Pratique de l’Inoculation._ Paris, An. VII. (1798), p 51.
[932] Andrew, u. s. p. 53.
[933] “I am sorry to have found that this operation has not always secured
the patient from having the smallpox afterwards, if the eruptions have
been imperfect without maturation. I attended one in a very full smallpox,
which ran through all its stages in the usual manner; yet this patient had
been inoculated ten years before, and, on the 5th day after inoculation,
began to be feverish, with a headache, followed by a slight eruption,
which eruption soon went off without coming to suppuration; the place of
inoculation had inflamed and remained open ten days, leaving a deep scar,
which I saw.” William Heberden, Senr., M.D., _Commentaries on Disease_ (p.
436). This was published in 1802, after the author’s death; but as he was
in the height of his practice from 1760 onwards, the case, which is
undated, may be taken as illustrating Heberden’s position in the Suttonian
controversy.
[934] Benj. Chandler, M.D., _An Essay on the Present Method of
Inoculation_. Lond. 1767.
[935] _Method of Inoculating the Smallpox._ Lond. 1766. Baker thought he
was “an enemy of improvement and no philosopher,” who stood upon the
antecedent improbability of securing the patient by a minimal inoculation
such as Sutton used.
[936] Giles Watts, M.D., _Vindication of the Method of Inoculating_.
London, 1767.
[937] William Bromfeild, _Thoughts on the Method of treating Persons
Inoculated for the Smallpox_. Lond. 1767. He was a Court surgeon and a man
of some eminence. Morgagni dedicated one of the books of his _De Sedibus
et Causis Morborum_ to him as representing the Royal Society.
[938] W. Langton, M.D., _Address to the Public on the present Method of
Inoculation_. London and Salisbury, 1767. Dr Thomas Glass, of Exeter,
replied in 1767 to Bromfeild and Langton, in _A Letter to Dr Baker on the
Means of procuring a Distinct and Favourable Kind of Smallpox_. Lond.
1767, and in a _Second Letter to Dr Baker_, 1767.
[939] W. Watson, M.D., _An Account of a Series of Experiments instituted
with a view of ascertaining the most successful Method of Inoculating the
Smallpox_. London, 1768.
[940] John Mudge, Surgeon at Plymouth, _A Dissertation on the Inoculated
Smallpox_. London, 1777. A copy of this essay was found in the library of
Dr Samuel Johnson. The Doctor was a friend of the author’s father, the
Rev. Archdeacon Mudge, whose published sermons he has characterized in one
of his most amusing balanced sentences of praise qualified with blame.
Johnson stood godfather to one of John Mudge’s children. Notes on “Dr
Johnson’s Library,” by A. W. Hutton.
[941] Edward Jenner, M.D., _Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the
Variolae Vaccinae, or Cowpox_. Lond. 1798, p. 56. See also his _Further
Observations on the Cowpox_. 1799.
[942] Langton cites the following advertisement put out on 18 June, 1767,
in his own district by Messrs Slatter and Duke, surgeons, of Ringwood,
Hants: “The first objection I shall take notice of is that the disorder
being in general so light, it is imagined there is danger of a second
infection [i.e. a natural attack]. Whenever this has been supposed to have
happened, I am certain the operation has failed, which not being
discovered by the operator, proves to me that he was not experienced in
the practice; for it may always be determined in four, five, or six days,
sometimes sooner; and if there is the least reason to doubt, it is very
easy to inoculate a second, third or fourth time, which may be done
without the least inconvenience. I have inoculated several patients three
or four times for their own satisfaction, having very little or perhaps no
eruption.”
[943] _Mem. Med. Soc. Lond._ IV. 114.
[944] John Covey, of Basingstoke, 8 May, 1786, in _London Medical
Journal_, VII. p. 180.
[945] _Address to the Inhabitants of Liverpool on the subject of a General
Inoculation for the Smallpox._ 1 September, 1781.
[946] The account of the London charity is taken from the _History of
Inoculation in Great Britain_ (1796) by Woodville, who became physician to
it in 1791.
[947] _Med. Obs. and Inquiries_, III. (1767), p. 287. The passage quoted
(p. 306, _note_) is almost exactly in the words of Hufeland long after,
with reference to the probable extinction of smallpox by cowpox. See his
_Journal_, X. pt. 2, p. 189.
[948] J. C. Lettsom, _A Letter to Sir Robert Barker, F.R.S. and G.
Stacpoole, Esq. upon General Inoculation_. London, 1778.
[949] _A Plan of the General Inoculating Dispensary, &c._ Lond. (no date).
[950] T. Dimsdale, _Thoughts on General and Partial Inoculation_. Lond.
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