REMARKS ON VACCINATION AND INOCULATION.
HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF ESTABLISHED FAME AND FORTUNE.
As queries sent to medical publications are seldom perused by any individuals except those who possess considerable knowledge on the subjects therein discussed, the uninitiated can receive but little direct advantage from the researches recorded in such works, either in quieting their alarms, or regulating their determination on points of distressing importance ; whereas a great benefit may be conferred on the public by elucidations divested of the pomp of learning, if scientific men, who are exalted above the region of apprehension, would nobly declare their sentiments in a miscellaneous periodical, concerning circumstances of high and universal interest, but enveloped in gloom and uncertainty. Under the influence of a hope that something like this may occur, the following questions and perplexities are brought forward.
--in order to form a just &idea of the position which that horrible disease the Smallpox, and its two preservatives, Inoculation and Vaccination, occupy in the , public opinion at the commencement of the year 1830, it will be necessary to ' take a short retrospective view of circumstances connected with that dreadful scourge in times that are passed. My first recollections concerning it take me back to the dawning of memory ; and as my days have been long declining from the meridian of human life, the period from that mra to this is considerable. I remember being inoculated, and the mode of treatment that followed it, in what may be denominated the improved system, when the original method of heat almost to suffocation was happily relinquished; but I heard many years since, from an intelligent nurse, an account of the last-mentioned mode of treatment, in
the manner she endured it, when a nursery-maid in a gentleman's family. She described her being shut up, together with four or five other individuals, children and female servants, in an apartment of two rooms, with doors and windows closed, and every crevice pasted over with paper to exclude the air ; in which den of contagion they encountered the horrors of the smallpox. It is I think admitted, that the cause of an entire change in the treatment of the disorder arose from one of those events by which it pleases providence to enlighten instantaneously the human race. The town of Blandford in Dorsetshire was nearly laid in ashes by a dreadful conflagration which began on the 4th of June 1731, at a time when the smallpox raged in upwards of sixty families: the rapid progress of the flames left no other means of rescuing the sick from a horrible death by fire, but by ex posing them with little or no shelter to the full effect of the atmosphere,—which was then regarded as involving almost as fatal, though not so terrible a doom : they were all safely removed ; and, to the general astonishment, a greater
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number of the sick recovered than had ever before been known to escape the malady, for only one individual died. Medical science being enlightened by so remarkable a circumstance, the suffocating system was soon after abandoned. . Inoculation for the smallpox, at the period when my remembrance commences, , was nearly a fearless, and almost, but not entirely, a universal practice; for there existed a few people who felt conscientious scruples respecting the lawfulness of
. voluntarily exciting a disease. At that time, 'any expression of doubt as to effectual preservation from future contagion by passing through the inoculated smallpox, was met by contempt,—much more an opinion that it was possible to take the disorder repenterItym thelsatural way • this was considered, indeed, an apparent absurdity too glaring to be incautiously avowed, though perhaps really 'outertained by many observant people. Periodical publications were at that sera few in number, and of very limited circulation ; but by an examination of old magazines &e., it can be discovered that disputes concerning some doubtful cases of smallpox did take place amongst medical men even at an early period after the introduction of inoculation in 1721. I have read in a periodical of remote date, a curious discussion on some details which were communicated to the British medical practitioners, concerning a case that occurred in the country from which Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE imported the art of inoculation. This case, which now would scarce excite attention at York if it happened at Durham, then formed, it appears, a subject of strong dispute. The circumstances were these : A young Greek lady, whose father was physician to the Sultan, had been inoculated for the smallpox in infancy, and passed through it in the usual way, but had most unequivocally taken the disorder afterwards : the possibility of such an event was strongly debated ; the fact, if true, afforded undoubted evidence, that even in a part of the world where inoculation had been practised from time im. memorial, it could not be considered as affording a certain preservative from contagion; but in contradiction to this it was alleged, "that the lady was an infant when inoculated, and therefore no authority in the matter ; that her mother being probably very young and unobservant, and her father's time much engrossed at the Sultan's court, Meg might not have paid sufficient attention to the progress of the disorder to know accurately whether the constitution of their child had really received the infection," or in other words, that the lady herself knew nothing about the matter, and her mother was too giddy, and her father too busy, to be either of them better informed; and on such sort of reasoning the stubborn matter of fact was rejected.
A series of years passed on, in what may be denominated the triumphant days . of inoculation ; the practice spread over Europe; and on the whole, the comfort and happiness of the human race was most probably increased by it, though its utility in the preservation of life in the aggregate was -not so considerable as might have been imagined, the smallpox being thus kept in perpetual activity. As information became more generally diffused, cases of smallpox occurring after inoculation, and even after the natural disease were more talked about, and ' met with some believers; but such an opinion when hazarded, was usually re
' pressed by scornful disapprobation ; and it was answered, "that the sufferers had never gone through the smallpox properly. To this reply the rejoinder of reasoners whose intelligence was in advance of their age, was simple, but, unanswerable, viz : "that those who had been previously inoculated had passed through it under the care of experienced medical men, whose practice had been successful in securing numerous people who went on through life in safety; and if there did not really exist any criterion by which a medical practitioner could determine with certainty what number of his patients were secure from future attacks. and what number were environed with dangers aggravated by their supposed security, (and consequent liability to treat themselves improperly when seized by contagion,) it amounted even upon their opponents own hypothesis to' i. exactly ate truth for which they contendedinamely, that there did not exist any
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indubitable preservative from the smallpox; uor did there breathe any human creatures who could be certain they should not die of that disorder. Nevertheless, the prudence of taking the imperfect security inoculation afforded was not disputed. A SOLITAIRE. (To be concluded in our next Number.)
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