Newgate regularly, maintained in a letter addressed to Dr. Freind Upon the whole, Sir, in the cases mentioned, there was nothing like the smallpox, either in symptoms, appearances, advance of the pustules, or the course of the distemper. And it would puzzle any one to conceive how it is possible that smallpox can ever be prevented by inoculation. With the exception of one of the men, the girl who had cotton dipped in matter thrust up her nostrils, had as fair a smallpox as any in the place. * Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Steigertahl, physician to the King, to test the matter farther, "joined purses," and had one of the women inoculated in Newgate sent to Hertford, where smallpox of a severe form was prevalent, to lie in bed with smallpox patients. This she did with impunity; but it was reasonably objected that many who were not inoculated did so likewise and escaped without harm. The Newgate experiment, of course, caused great excitement, and induced many repetitions in town and country. The Princess of Wales was especially alive to the importance of "the great discovery;" and for her additional satisfaction, six charity children, belonging to the parish of St. James, were inoculated; and all but one "took" and did well; the exception being due to the craft of the child, who, for the sake of the reward, concealed the fact of having had smallpox. Upon these trials, and several others in private families [wrote Sir Hans Sloane], the Princess of Wales sent for me to ask my opinion of the inoculation of the Princesses. I told Her Royal Highness, that by what appeared in the several essays, it seemed to be a method to secure people from the great dangers attending smallpox in the natural way. That preparations by diet and necessary precautions being taken, made the practice very desirable; but that not being certain of the consequences which might happen, I would not persuade nor advise the making trials upon patients of such importance to the public. The Princess then asked me if I would dissuade her from it: to which I made answer that I would not, in a matter so likely to be of such advantage. Her reply was, that she was then resolved to have it done, and * A Letter to Dr. Freind showing the Danger and Uncertainty of Inoculating the Smallpox. By W. Wagstaffe, M.D. London, 1722. ordered me to go to the King, who commanded me to wait upon him on the occasion. I told his Majesty my opinion, that it was impossible to be certain, but that raising such a commotion in the blood there might happen dangerous accidents not foreseen: but he replied that such might and had happened to persons who had lost their lives by bleeding in a pleurisy, and taking physic in any distemper, let never so much care be taken. I told his Majesty that I thought this to be the same case, and the matter was concluded upon, and succeeded as usual, without any danger during the operation, or the least ill symptom or disorder since.* The Princess Amelia, aged eleven, and Caroline, aged nine, were therefore inoculated on the 19th of April, 1722. Let us return to Maitland, whose triumph for the moment appeared complete, and with it his assurance. To his detractors he professed boldly— I could bring a great many cases of persons inoculated in Turkey to prove the constant and certain success of the practice; in all which I have never seen any miscarriage, except in one, which was wholly due to the rashness and inadvertence of a surgeon at Constantinople. Is it not a matter of the greatest importance for us to know how to prevent the mighty contagion of the smallpox, and how to preserve our children from the violent attacks and fatal effects of it? To divine Maitland's character-to determine how far he was deceiver or deceived is not easy. He obviously made professions in vast excess of his knowledge. One of his contemporaries writes I remember Mr. Maitland at Child's Coffee House, when the experiment was just begun at Newgate, was as confident and positive of the success and security proposed by inoculation as if he had had twenty years experience without any miscarriage, which made those who heard him justly suspect he was more concerned for the employ than for the success of it. t He had not the proper craft of the conscious rogue, for alongside his assertions of absolute competence and safety, he set forth such confessions of ignorance and disaster, that one is impelled to pronounce him a pur An Account of Inoculation by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., given to Mr. Ranby to be published, 1736. Philosophical Transactions, Vol. xlix. p. 516. + Isaac Massey to Sir Hans Sloane, 1722. blind enthusiast. For example, take this case, which he published without apparently any sense of its scope 2nd October, 1721.-After due preparation of the body, I engrafted Mary Batt, an infant of two years and a half old, daughter of Thomas Batt, a Quaker, living at Temple, within three miles of Hertford. The red spots and flushings appeared on her face and neck the fourth day; and she kept playing about well till the seventh or eighth, when she became a little heavy and thirsty, with a fuller and quicker pulse; then the pustules came out fresh and full, and the incisions discharged a thick and well digested matter. She had not above twenty in all upon her; they continued about three or four days, then dried away and fell off, and the child recovered perfectly. Thus far all was well; but what happened afterwards was, I must own, not a little surprising to me, not having seen or observed anything like it before. The case was in short this. Six of Mr. Batt's domestic servants, namely, four men and two maids, who all in their turns were wont to hug and caress this child whilst under the operation, and the pustules were out upon her, never suspected them to be catching, nor indeed did I, were all seized with the right natural smallpox, of several and very different kinds; for some had the round distinct sort, some the small continued, and others the confluent; all of 'em had a great many, but especially the last, with the usual bad symptoms, and very narrowly escaped. But they all (God be thanked) did well (except one maid, that would not be governed under the distemper, who died of it,) and now enjoy a perfect state of health.* Thus at the outset, smallpox and death were the products of inoculation—the peril to be averted was incurred and multiplied. Yet the man who thus records his own infamous ignorance, had the impudence in the same pages to assert The practice prudently managed, is always safe and useful, and the issue ever certain and salutary.† Words are wasted on such reckless folly: we perceive how true is Carlyle's observation, "Stupidity intellectual always means stupidity moral, as you will, with surprise or not, discover if you look." Before leaving Maitland, we may take another leaf from his experience. He writes— 12th October, 1721.-I inoculated Joseph and Benjamin, sons of + Ibid. p. 33. Maitland's Account, p. 27. William Heath, of Hertford; the first of about seven, and the second three years of age; both with the same matter and at the same time the last had a gentle and favourable kind; but the first, namely, Joseph, being a fat, foul, gluttonous boy, who would not be confined to the rules and directions I had strictly charged his mother withal, as to diet and keeping warm, was taken very ill before the eruption, and after it had a great load of the continued small kind, but at last recovered and did well. What a mighty difference is here to be observed between those two boys! The reason of it seems to be plainly this: the younger, who had the favourable kind, was of a clean habit, moderate appetite, and easily governed during the whole process. The elder was not only of a gross foul constitution, but likewise had a voracious appetite, always eating and filling his belly with the coarsest food -as cheese, fat country pudding, cold boiled beef, and the like, which I saw myself as I came in by chance the third day after the operation; nor was there any care taken to restrain or keep him within doors in cold, windy, frosty weather; he once wet his feet in water-insomuch that had he taken the smallpox by infection, the world could not have saved his life. Hence it appears how necessary it is to cleanse thoroughly foul habits before the operation, and, withal, to keep patients to a very strict regimen under it.* Verily, as Cobbett said, quackery is never without a shuffle. As we shall see, inoculation came to require a preparatory course of very strict regimen-so strict as to be impracticable for the rank and file of the world; but the practice was at first commended without any such conditions. What said Maitland's patron, Lady Mary, in her famous letter from Adrianople? The smallpox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting.... Every year thousands undergo its operation; and the French ambassador says pleasantly that they take the smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take waters in other countries. There is no example of anyone that has died in it. It was under cover of such seductive assurances that inoculation was introduced to England, and established in perversity and quackery. * Maitland's Account, p. 27. CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST OPPONENTS OF INOCULATION. As we have seen, it is part of the legend that the introduction of inoculation was fanatically resisted by physicians, clergy, and mob; but the resistance was neither fanatical nor extensive, and is chiefly the invention of the romancing biographers who represent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as a heroine and martyr of science. To do that shrewd and brilliant woman justice, she made no pretence to the character imputed to her, and in her copious correspondence, there is not a hint of annoyance on the score of her patronage of the Turkish modification of smallpox. On the contrary, it would appear that inoculation brought her a large share of that veiled notoriety in which she had sincere pleasure. Writing to the Countess of Mar in 1723, she says Lady Byng has inoculated both her children, and since that experiment has not had any ill effect, the whole town are doing the same thing; and I am so much pulled about, and solicited to visit people, that I am forced to run into the country to hide myself.* Lady Mary understood her countrymen thoroughly, and, thirty years after her exploits in inoculation, she wrote to Mr. Wortley Montagu as follows BRESCIA, 24th April, 1748. I find Tar Water succeeded to Ward's Drop. 'Tis possible, by this time, that some other quackery has taken place of that. The English are easier than any other nation infatuated by the prospect of universal medicines, nor is there any country in the world where the doctors raise such immense fortunes. I attribute it to the fund of credulity which is in all mankind. We have no longer faith in miracles and relics, and therefore with the same fury run after recipes and physicians. The same money which three hundred years ago was given for the health of the soul is now given for the health of the body, and by the same sort of peoplewomen and half-witted men. † 1861. Letters and Works of Lady M. W. Montagu, Vol. i. p. 468, edition + Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 161. |