THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 557 



French theologians of the Sorbonne solemnly condemned the prac- 

 tice. English theologians were most loudly represented by the Rev. 

 Edward Massy, who, in 1722, preached a sermon in which he declared 

 that Job's distemper was probably confluent small-pox, and that he 

 liad been doubtless inoculated by the devil that diseases are sent by 

 Providence for tlie punishment of sin, and that the proposed attemjjt 

 to prevent them is " a diabolical operation." This sermon was enti- 

 tled " The Dano-erous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation." Not less 

 absurd was tlie sermon of the Rev. Mr. Delafaye, entitled " Inocu- 

 lation an Indefensible Practice." Thirty years later the. struggle was 

 still going on. It is a pleasure to note one great churchman, Mad- 

 dox. Bishop of Worcester, giving battle on the side of right reason ; 

 but as late as 1753 we have the Rector of Canterbury denouncing 

 inoculation from his pulpit in the primatial city, and many of his 

 brethren following his example. Among the most common weapons 

 hurled by churchmen at the supporters of inoculation, during all this 

 long war, w^ere charges of sorcery and atheism.* 



ISTor did Jenner's blessed discovery of Vaccination escape opi^osi- 

 tion on similar grounds. In 1798 an anti-vaccine society was formed 

 by clergymen and physicians, calling on the people of England to 

 suj)press vaccination as " bidding defiance to Heaven itself even to 

 the will of God " and declaring that " the law of God prohibits the 

 practice." In 1803 the Rev. Dr. Ramsden thundered against it in 

 a sei'mon before the University of Cambridge, mingling texts of 

 Scripture with calumnies against Jenner ; but Plumptre in England, 

 Waterhouse in America, and a host of other good men and true, press 

 forward to Jenner's side, and at last science, humanity, and right rea- 

 son, gain the victory." 



But I pass to one typical conflict in our days. In 1847 James 

 Young Simpson, a Scotch physician of eminence, advocated the use 

 of Anaesthetics in obstetrical cases. 



Immediately a storm arose. From pulpit after pulpit such a use 

 of chloroform was denounced as impious. It was declared contrary 

 to Holy Writ, and texts were cited abundantly. The ordinary decla- 

 ration was, that to use chloroform was " to avoid one part of the pri- 

 meval curse on woman." ^ 



' See Sprengel, " Histoire de la Medecine," vol. vi., pp. 39-80. For the opposition 

 of the Paris Faculty of Theology to inoculation, see the "Journal de Barbier," vol. vi., 

 p. 294. For bitter denunciations of the inoculation by English clergy, and for the noble 

 stand against them by Maddox, see Baron, "Life of Jenner," vol. i., pp. 231, 232, and 

 vol. ii., pp. 39, 40. For the strenuous opposition of the same clergy, see Weld, " His- 

 tory of the Royal Society," vol. i., p. 464, note. Also, for the comical side of this mat- 

 ter, see Nichols's " Literary Illustrations," vol. v., p. 800. 



2 For the opposition of conscientious men in England to vaccination, see Duns, " Life 

 of Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart.," London, 1873, pp. 248, 249 ; also Baron, " Life of Jen- 

 ner," ubi supra, and vol. ii., p. 43 ; also " Works of Sir J. Y. Simpson," vol. ii. 



^See Duns, " Life of Sir J. Y. Simpson," pp. 215-222. 



