218 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



supplied to Jenner himself, and we thus have explained 

 the effect of the " vaccination " in preventing the sub- 

 sequent " inoculation " from producing much effect, 

 since both were really mild forms of small-pox inocula- 

 tion. This matter is fully explained by Dr. Creighton in 

 his evidence before the Royal Commission, printed in the 

 Second Report. Professor E. M. Crookshank, who has 

 made a special study of cow-pox and other animal diseases 

 and their relation to human small-pox, gives important 

 confirmatory evidence, to be found in the Fourth Report. 

 This brief statement of the early history of vaccina- 

 tion has been introduced here in order to give what seems 

 to be a probable explanation of the remarkable fact that 

 a large portion of the medical profession accepted, as 

 proved, that vaccination protected against a subsequent 

 inoculation of small-pox, when in reality there was no 

 such proof, as the subsequent history of small-pox epi- 

 demics has shown. The medical and other members of 

 the Royal Commission could not realize the possibility 

 of such a failure to get at the truth. Again and again 

 they asked the witnesses above referred to to explain how 

 it was possible that so many educated specialists could 

 be thus deceived. They overlooked the fact that a cen- 

 tury ago was, as regards the majority of the medical 

 profession, a pre-scientific age; and nothing proves this 

 more clearly than the absence of any systematic " con- 

 trol " experiments, and the extreme haste with which 

 some of the heads of the profession expressed their belief 

 in the lifelong protection against small-pox afforded by 

 vaccination, only four years after the discovery had been 

 first announced. This testimony caused Parliament to 

 vote Jenner 10,000 in 1802. 



