at that time he little knew the extent of Jenner's service to the human race.

Mr. EDWARD MORRIS did not think that even what had been said sufficiently set forth their debt of gratitude to Jenner. His discovery afforded a reasonable expectation of the extermination of smallpox, and the merit of the transcendent discovery was all his own. Inoculation in the old mode mitigated the disease in a few, and spread it in full fury over many. It was therefore a curse to mankind instead of a blessing. The Smallpox Hospital in its practice of inoculation, was a source of pestilence and a multiplier of victims to this deplorable distemper. The pre-eminent distinction of Vaccination was that it preserved its subject and injured no one. This unspeakable blessing they owed to Jenner, nor had the least improvement been effected upon his original and carefully matured prescription. They were bound to consider how he had abandoned the lucrative pursuit of his profession, and surrendered many years of his life for the good of his country and mankind. He would therefore submit an amendment to the resolution before the Committee, that the grant be £20,000 instead of £10,000, to mark their sense of Jenner's merits and to place him in a state of independence.

The amendment was warmly supported by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Windham, Sir John Sebright, and Mr. Herbert.

Mr. PERCEVAL, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, stood to his resolution, but with indifferent arguments. It was without precedent that a vote recommended by Government should be thus increased. He admitted that Jenner was entitled to much more than they could afford, but it was also without precedent that so great a sum as £30,000 (inclusive of the former vote) should be bestowed on any discoverer.

Mr. WILLIAM SMITH would not submit to these objections. He recited the triumphs of Vaccination in Asia and America, and said it was true as of old that a prophet had no honour in his own country. [An observation

singularly inapplicable to Jenner.] He urged the Committee to vote for the larger sum, and said that whilst the Chancellor of the Exchequer might in his public capacity protest, yet in his secret heart he would not be displeased if overborne by the sentiment of the House, of the country, and of the world.

Mr. WHITBREAD begged the Committee to bear in mind that Jenner had scorned to monopolise Vaccination, and had thereby sacrificed a great fortune. He called on the House to vote for the larger sum. Vaccination furnished the means for lessening the poor rate. Reduced smallpox signified fewer deaths, fewer orphans, fewer widows. Vaccination meant better health for the poor and more money in the pockets of the rich. They would excuse this appeal of his to the cupidity of the landed interest inasmuch as he had been anticipated in the exhibition of loftier considerations. He also wished to relieve the House from a renewal of this question. Let them reward Jenner once for all, and liberally: and remember that what was called economy in this connection, if practised by the House, would be, in the eye of the world. their disgrace.

Others spoke in a similar strain, and when the House divided, 60 voted for Mr. Morris's amendment, and 47 against it, £20,000 being carried by a majority of 13. Including the £10,000 voted in 1802, Jenner was thus awarded £30,000 of public money, in times, too, of war and scarcity.

The debate, it will be observed, was conducted in a House of 107 members at a late period of the session, and the variations among the speakers consisted in degrees of extravagance and credulity. The fabulous matter as to Jenner personally affords curious evidence of the manner in which legends originate in the presence of contemporaries, and how they come to be repeated with the fervour of good faith by men whose competence and honesty might be taken for unimpeachable. Jenner's party had whipped up their adherents, and the issue was sedulously arranged for; but because they had their way

it need not be assumed that it was necessary to circumvent any active adversaries. Apathy was their chief difficulty. There was little to be got out of cowpox by the ordinary politician; and then, as now, the average M.P. rarely committed himself to any project that did not obviously make for his popularity. As for the enthusiasm for Vaccination displayed by the speakers in the House, we have to recollect that they were not converts to the practice per se. No really new discovery was ever received with such an instant chorus of approbation by the mob, educated or uneducated. They were one and all bred under the severe and dangerous practice of Variolous Inoculation, whereof Vaccination was no more than a modification with a seductive promise of equal or greater security from smallpox, and exemption from its perils and annoyances. Unless this prepossession be allowed for, the conduct of Parliament toward Jenner cannot be rightly understood. There was not a word uttered against Vaccination from the ground which physiologists at this day occupy, for that ground, in a scientific sense, was as yet unknown. Smallpox was a mysterious visitation to be mysteriously dealt withdodged, if possible, by medical artifice; and not, as we are persuaded, a crisis of impurity in the blood induced by foul conditions of life, which cannot be better disposed of than in the course of nature by eruptive fever. If we could suppress smallpox (in any other way than by the removal of its causes) we should merely alter its manifestation and have to accept it in some other and aggravated form of disease.

CHAPTER XVII.

VACCINATION ESTABLISHED AND ENDOWED.

JENNER provided for, his adherents had yet another end to achieve, namely, their own release from the burden of the Royal Jennerian Society, paralysed by the secession of Dr. Walker and the Friends and the establishment of the London Vaccine Institution. At first they had endeavoured to discredit the new Institution, even to the extent of distributing hand-bills like the following in the streets

A CAUTION.

To persons desirous of obtaining INOCULATION for the Cowpox Gratis under the sanction of

THE ROYAL JENNERIAN SOCIETY.

Whereas, Doctor JOHN WALKER has, under various pretences, obstructed persons going to the Central House of this Society, the Public are hereby warned to be upon their guard against any insidious representations, the connection between Dr. WALKER and the Society having ceased, and Dr. KNOWLES having been appointed the Resident Inoculator at the Society's House, No. 14 Salisbury Square.

By Order of the Directors and Medical Council, 9th October, 1806.

It was all in vain. Walker was preferred to Sheridan Knowles backed by Jenner, whose friends had no liking for the support of the Society out of their own pockets. It was therefore planned to resort to Parliament for an annual subsidy so as dispense with the necessity of subscriptions. The managers of the London Vaccine Institution, learning what was on foot, naturally argued that if Government was to be thus propitious, it was they who had the better claim to assistance, and therefore prepared a petition setting forth their exertions in spreading Vaccine Inoculation. This interference with their scheme filled the Jennerians with fury, and Mr. JOHN FULLER undertook to speak their mind in the House of Commons. When, therefore, on 2nd June, 1808, Sir THOMAS TURTON presented the petition, FULLER sprang

to his feet and denounced it, saying a grosser forgery had never been submitted to the House.

The SPEAKER interposed. The petition had not been read. When it was, the House would be enabled to judge of its contents. Mr. FULLER resumed his seat amid general laughter. The petition having been read

Mr. FULLER apologised for his abruptness. The petition was a gross cheat, a wicked trick to swindle the public; or, if it was not absolute swindling, it went very near the wind. When they came to solicit his subscription, he thought they represented some respectable corporation, but what did they turn out to be? A parcel of Quakers, or Presbyterians, or whatever else they were called. They had got five guineas from him, but the moment he detected them, he threatened them with a Bow Street officer and a charge of swindling, which soon frightened them into a re-delivery of his money. What a shame it was to see the cause of such fellows espoused by any man in that House! He did not suppose the Honourable Baronet shared in their gains, and he might laugh as he pleased, and spout like a lawyer, but it was a poor way to show himself off for the sake of a little notoriety among such despicable sectaries. He hoped the House would not lend any countenance to the imposture.

Sir THOMAS TURTON good humouredly replied, that the Jennerian Society, in whose interest the preceding speaker exhibited so much untempered zeal, was not instituted till 1803. The original Vaccine Pock Institution was established by Dr. Pearson in 1799. The Institution to which the petition referred was established in 1806, chiefly by members of the Society of Friends, a sect to whose virtuous principles and behaviour it was his privilege to bear testimony. Since 1806 the Institution had communicated the vaccine matter to 81,000 persons in every situation of life. The petitioners only desired to have the facts they adduced inquired into, and hoped for public aid only in the event of being entitled to it on public grounds.

This application for assistance by Walker's Institution