VACCINATION. 



727 



points of the insertion of the virus ; there was no con- 

 stitutional disturbance whatever. Waterhouse very 

 truly remarks: "One fact in such cases is worth a 

 thousand arguments" (The Jenner of America: an 

 address delivered before the Philadelphia Co. Medical 

 Society by W. M. Welch, M. D., 1885). 



Notwithstanding his successful experiments with 

 vaccination, all efforts to establish a vacfine centre jn 

 Boston failed ; but Waterhouse had a firm friend in 

 Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, to 

 whom he sent vaccine, and who in turn supplied 

 physicians in the. District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, 

 Maryland, Virginia, and other States still farther 

 south, also the Indians ; studying the phenomena of 

 the disease himself very closely, and learning by 

 observation that the proper period for collecting the 

 virus is "eight times 24 hours from the time of its 

 insertion." This rule, which the President himself 

 observed carefully and with uniform success, he was 

 particular to communicate to all to whom he sent virus 

 (Welch). Waterhouse made repeated efforts to es- 

 t-tblih a vaccine institution in Boston, but failed, 

 though his perseverance finally settled the question of 

 the value of vaccination in the following manner : 

 The Board of Health of Boston appointed a committee 

 of seven of the most reputable physicians of the city, 

 who on Aug. 16, 1802. vaccinated nineteen children at 

 the health office. On Nov. 9 these children were 

 sent to Noddle's Island, and there inoculated two 

 different times with variolous matter, besides being 

 exposed for twenty days to the contiifjlum of small pox 

 without manifesting the slightest indisposition. The 

 report of the committee concludes with this remark : 

 " i'he cow- pox prevented their taking the small-pox. 

 and they do therefore consider the result of the experi- 

 ment as satisfactory evidence that the cow-pox is a 

 complete security against the sinall-pox " (Welch). 

 A similar test at Randolph, Vt, where the question 

 of inoculation with small-pox vs. cow-pox was to 

 determine the efficacy of the latter ; a town-meeting 

 was held, a committee appointed, and 7"> persons who 

 had been vaccinated were then inoculated with the small- 

 pox virus taken warm from the pustules of patients 

 covered with them, and not one of the number was 

 found susceptible to small-pox. The committee, 

 however, was not satisfied, and desired to find some 

 woman with a sucking child who would be willing to 

 let her infant be vaccinated and herself have small- 

 pox. Waterhouse says : " Mrs. M -heroically 



offered herself for the experiment. The infant wns 

 first inoculated with kine-pox, and forty-eight hours 

 afterwards its mother was inoculated with small-pox. 

 The kinc-pox went on regularly in the child, and so 

 did the small-pox in the mother, who suckled the 

 child all the time. The mother had a considerable 

 number of pustules on her body, face, and breasts ; 

 one or two of which were kept raw by the tender lips 

 of the infant while sucking ; and yet the child ap- 

 peared as well throughout the whole process as if it 

 had not been nursed by a person suffering under 

 small-pox" (Welch). 



Dr. Henry A. Martin says of the opposition to 

 Waterhouse by the clique of Boston physicians that 

 it "did all it could to oppose vaccination (as taught by 

 Jenner), to hinder, vilify, and persecute the noble 

 man, who, in the face of obstacles innumerable, strug- 

 gled for the truth and won won what ? Poverty, 

 persecution, bitter and mendacious, and a fame so 

 great and lasting that only here and there an eccentric 

 student knows more than his name " ("Jefferson as a 

 Vaccinator," N. C. Mrd. Jmirnnl, January, 1881). In 

 1810 he petitioned the Legislature of Massachusetts 

 to reimburse him for the work he had done, having 

 impoverished himself by his long-continued efforts in 

 establishing vaccination in his own and other States. 

 Tin: Legislature satisfied itself by permitting him to 

 withdraw his petition ! In a letter to an old friend in 

 England he says: "For the honor of my country I 



am ashamed to tell Dr. Jenner how I have been treated 

 by our Legislature respecting remuneration. I have 

 received nothing but abuse, nay, more, I have been 

 intrigued out of my place as physician to the U. S. 

 Marine Hospital, with 500 sterling a year, and given 

 me by Jefferson as a reward for my labors in vaccina- 

 tion, and this merely in consequence of his going out 

 and others coming in, so that, at 56 years of age, I 

 have now to contrive and execute some new plan to 

 supply this deficiency. " After he was forced out of 

 the university by his jealous associates, President 

 Madison, knowing of his unfair treatment, gave 

 him military supervision of the nine posts of New 

 England. 



1'r. James Smith, of Baltimore, began vaccinating 

 in that city in the spring of 1801, contemporaneously 

 with Waterhouse's second effort in Boston, but, unlike 

 him, met with no opposition professionally or other- 

 wise ; "on the contrary, the profession of Baltimore, 

 including almost the entire faculty, gave public and 

 early expression of their approval," and vaccine 

 virus was distributed through his efforts " over Penn- 

 sylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- 

 land. Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North and South 

 Carolina, and other States, and even to the \Ve;-t 

 Indies and South America " (T/ie Introduction of 

 Inoculation find Vaccination into Mart/land Ulstori- 

 cullii (.'niisiilrrril "Address by J. 11. Quinan, M. D., 

 Baltimore, 1883). It is stated by Dr. Quinan that 

 the first virus received into Baltimore was by Dr. 

 John Crawford 'of that city in the summer of 1800, 

 contemporaneously with the first received by Water- 

 house. Notwithstanding the assistance given Dr. 

 James Smith, he, too, became impoverished in his 

 enthusiastic efforts to disseminate the " new inocula- 

 tion," as it was then called. The vaccine institute 

 establi.-hod by him and his associates in 1802, and his 

 work to farther its beneficial effects, rendered him 

 almost penniless, and when in 1809 the Legislature 

 enacted a law to establish an institution for the free 

 distribution of matter he tried to obtain an appropria- 

 tion but failed. A lottery was then tried, but as it 

 had to compete with the Washington Monument Lot- 

 tery it also failed. Subsequently he succeeded in 

 mortgaging his private property and establishing a 

 vaccine institution in the city; and in 1813, Congress 

 having established a II. S. vaccine agency, Dr. James 

 Smith was appointed without pay to fill the position of 

 agent, which he held till 1822, when it was abolished 

 (Quinan). Like Waterhouse he early subjected his 

 two sons and other members of his family to small-pox 

 inoculation as a proof of the efficacy of vaccination, 

 and supported twenty special agents with horses and 

 virus to gratuitously vaccinate all who would submit 

 to it, 



From the date of these two noble men to the pres- 

 ent time the work of vaccination in this country has 

 been going on, until now there is not a city, town, or 

 hamlet in which it is not practised ; nor is there one 

 in which epidemics of small-pox are not always suc- 

 cessfully met by vaccination ; and in most of them 

 there are laws or ordinances compelling vaccination 

 of _ their school-children, if not of their entire popu- 

 lation. 



Rerrtcctnrttinn. Although the protection of a suc- 

 cessful vaccination is absolute for the time being, ac- 

 cumulative evidence goes to prove that it is not per- 

 manent and that revaccination is necessary to thor- 

 oughly protect the individual and the community. To 

 insure perfect immunity from the ravages of small- 

 pox it is therefore necessary to revaccinate from time 

 to time. Dr. Wm. M. Welch, physician in charge of 

 the Municipal (small-pox) Hospital, Philadelphia, 

 says : 



"Some of the earliest and most conclusive proofs 

 of the value of revaccination are furnished as the re- 

 sult of experience in the Wurtemberg, Bavarian, and 

 especially in the Prussian armies. Among 14,284 re- 



