CHAPTER XI.

PEARSON'S EXAMINATION.*

A FEW weeks after the award of £10,000 to Jenner by the House of Commons, Dr. Pearson published An Examination of the report of the committee. He did not contest Jenner's claim to consideration, but the ground on which it was advanced, and on which it was conceded; drawing attention to the manner in which the claims set forth in Jenner's petition had been reduced to "inoculation from one human being to another," whilst a new claim was invented for him, "to wit, the mode of transferring, indefinitely, the vaccine matter without any diminution of its specific power."

What Pearson held, and rightly held, was, that the public acceptance of the New Inoculation was due to Woodville and himself, and not to Jenner

The Cowpock Inoculation (after Dr. Jenner's book was published in June, 1798, which contained seven or eight cases, the whole result of his experience) was not practised by any person that I know of, till January, 1799, neither Dr. Jenner, nor any person that I could find being in possession of matter; but, in January, 1799, in consequence of a general inquiry, which I had instituted immediately after Jenner's publication, information was given of the Cowpock Disease breaking out in two Cow-stables near London, and from these sources Dr. Woodville and myself collected matter, by which, in the course of three months, 300 persons (not fewer, I think) were inoculated for the Cowpock in addition to the seven or eight cases of Dr. Jenner, then the whole stock of facts of Inoculation before the public. Besides carrying on the Inoculation ourselves in this manner, we disseminated the matter throughout the country, in particular to Dr. Jenner himself; and especially, I within that time issued a printed letter, directed to upwards of two hundred practitioners in different parts of the kingdom, containing thread impregnated with the Cowpock matter. By the close of 1799 about 4000 persons had been inoculated by Dr. Woodville, myself, and our correspondents.

An Examination of the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Claims of Remuneration for the Vaccine Pock Inoculation: containing a Statement of the Principal Historical Facts of the Vaccinia. By George Pearson, M.D., F.R.S. London, 1802. 8vo. Pp. 196.

Pearson also claimed to have cleared away difficulties created by Jenner's statements, some of which were most prejudicial to the public acceptance of the New Inoculation

I published experiments of inoculating persons with the Cowpock to show that they could not take the Cowpock after the Smallpox, contrary to Dr. Jenner. Secondly, experiments to show that persons could not take the Cowpock who had already gone through the Cowpock, also contrary to Dr. Jenner.* Thirdly, many persons had at this period made experiments to show that the Cowpox did not originate in the grease of Horses' heels, as Dr. Jenner had asserted. In the spring of 1799, a second publication appeared from Dr. Jenner recommending caustic or escharotics to the inoculated parts in Cowpox, which we found wholly unnecessary in practice; and I consider that the distinctive characters of the Cowpock were better understood by some of us than by Dr. Jenner himself.

One can only say of these statements of Pearson as against Jenner, that they are simple matters of fact, impugn them whoso list. It is impossible to controvert Pearson's assertion—

That the whole of Jenner's experience extended to seven or eight cases, and a part only of these-namely, four-were from human subject to human subject; and not until long after Dr. Woodville and myself had published several hundred instances of vaccine virus transmitted from arm to arm, had he any experiments to set alongside ours.

They had to find out for themselves when to take virus from the cow, how to preserve it when taken, how to dress inoculated arms, when to take virus from the arm, and, in short, to do everything that constitutes the difference between a suggestion and an art.

Pearson, too, as we have seen, had a leading part in the formation of the first Institution for the Inoculation of the Vaccine Pock, with which Jenner had not only nothing to do, but would have nothing to do: concerning which wrote Pearson

* Such was the logic, but such was not the fact. If no one could have Smallpox twice, and if inoculated Cowpox was equivalent to Smallpox, no one could have Cowpox twice. Such was the argument. Pearson did not foresee its systematic refutation exemplified in Re-Vaccination, septennial, triennial, annual.

The Vaccine Inoculation was next considerably established by the Cowpock Institution, of which I was one of the founders, commencing at the close of 1799; which Institution has been the principal office for the supplying the world in general, and the Army and Navy in particular, with matter; and where a regular register is kept of each of the cases inoculated.

As to Jenner keeping the secret of Cowpox and making a great fortune out of it, Pearson replied, first, that he had not proved his remedy; second, that he would have had to persuade the public to believe in him; and, third, that too much was known about Cowpox to have made a secret possible. Moreover, the assertion that he might have earned £10,000 a year and a fortune of £150,000 was absurd

Such a fortune no one ever acquired by physic in this or any other country-far exceeding the greatest ever known, those of Sir Theodore Mayerne in the first half of the 17th century, and of the still greater one of Dr. Ratcliffe in the early part of last century.

When it was further said, that experiments in Vaccine Inoculation had occupied twenty years of Jenner's life, that they had cost him £6000, and that he had surrendered a practice of £600 a year in the populous neighbourhood of Berkeley for the public benefit-he would not trust himself to characterise the allegations.

His own position, Pearson thus defined

I have admitted that Dr. Jenner first set on foot the inquiry into the advantages of Vaccine Inoculation; but I apprehend that the practice has been established almost entirely by other practitioners; and that his new facts, or which I consider to be new, have been, in my opinion, disproved by subsequent observers; and that in consequence of those facts being disproved, together with the very ample experiences of other persons, we owe the present extensive practice of the Vaccine Inoculation.

Pearson further indicated on what conditions he would have been satisfied to see Jenner rewarded

A much more dignified and more just ground of claim, and an equally favourable one for remuneration, would have been in terms denoting that the Petitioner had proposed a new kind of Inoculation, and actually furnished some instances of the success of it, founded upon facts; of which some were brought to light and use, which heretofore had only been locally known to a very small

number of persons; and others were discoveries of the Author: further, that in consequence of considerable subsequent investigation, by the Author and others, such a body of evidence had been obtained, and such further facts had been discovered, as demonstrated the advantages of the new practice.

Whilst willing that Jenner should be rewarded, for Woodville and for himself, Pearson wanted nothing: he simply maintained that the judgment of the House of Commons Committee should have recognised the facts of the situation. He observed

I have some authority for stating that the members of the Committee did not unanimously think such exclusive claims were just. I had some reason to expect that the representation of the Committee in their Report would have been such as to have satisfied the expectations, not exorbitant, of Dr. Woodville and myself; such as would have cost the Petitioner nothing, to wit, a mere acknowledgment of services. The most unqualified and exclusive claims having been decreed, this bounty of course has been withheld, either because it was judged to be not owing, or from some other motive which I will not name; but it is fitting that I disclaim any insinuation of unworthy motives actuating those with whom judgment was invested.

Considering the injustice to which Pearson had been subjected, and the provocation he had received, it is impossible to refrain from admiration of the serene and impartial temper in which he composed his Examination. Had he sat as judge between Jenner and himself, he could not have stated the case with greater accuracy and absence of bias. He fell into no exaggeration; he indulged in no sarcasm; he descended to no abuse. He set forth the incidents of the New Inoculation with the imperial simplicity and dignity of truth. Where others had gone crazed, he preserved some degree of sanity. He held it to be premature to proclaim the extinction of Smallpox, or to say with Jenner that reports of failure and injury from inoculated Cowpox were beneath contempt. It was only time and experience that could warrant such absolute assertion and prediction.

It is said that in hurricanes of panic or enthusiasm, wise men go home and keep quiet until the sky clears, resistance being folly. For immediate effect resistance

may be folly, but the protest of truth is sometimes imperative, whatever the disposition of the mob. Pearson took little at the time by his Examination: it entered into far too many details for general apprehension; and it was convenient to account for his opposition as due to jealousy and envy. Jenner attempted no reply, and assumed profound disdain. His silence was judicious, but it was not from disdain.

At this day it is easy to see that Pearson as against Jenner played his part badly, failing to recognise his proper advantage. Jenner's prescription in the Inquiry of 1798 was not Cowpox. It was Horsegrease Cowpox. It was a disease of the horse inoculated on the cow. Cowpox per se he expressly rejected as useless, having no specific effect on the human constitution. Pearson and Woodville entertained Jenner's prescription in good faith. They tried to generate pox on the cow with grease from the horse, but did not succeed. Reluctantly they abandoned Jenner's prescription, and resorted to Cowpox.

Whilst Pearson and Woodville were without prejudice against Horsegrease Cowpox, it was otherwise with the public. The origin of Cowpox in Horsegrease was voted detestable, and had the origin been maintained, it is not improbable that the New Inoculation would have proved abortive.

This difficulty Pearson and Woodville, the chief promoters of the New Inoculation, cleared away. They had tried Horsegrease; they considered they had disproved Jenner's assertion concerning it; and they were able to assure the public that they inoculated with Cowpox, and nothing but Cowpox, and had no connection with Horsegrease whatever. The public were satisfied; and Inoculation with Cowpox became the rage, fashionable and philanthropic.

What did Jenner do? Did he vindicate his prescription, the fruit of thirty years of incessant thought, observation and experiment? He did not. On the contrary he dropped it. He said not another word about