A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

[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.