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propounded by Animists, Vitalists, and other such schools. It
certainly had the very commendable feature of introducing
simplicity in the use of drugs in place of the complicated
prescriptions then in vogue. Had Hahnemann stopped at this point
he could not have been held up to the indefensible ridicule that
was brought upon him, with considerable justice, by his later
theories. But he lived onto propound his extraordinary theory of
“potentiality”—that medicines gained strength by being
diluted—and his even more extraordinary theory that all chronic
diseases are caused either by the itch, syphilis, or fig-wart
disease, or are brought on by medicines.
At the time that his theory of potentialities was promulgated,
the medical world had gone mad in its administration of huge
doses of compound mixtures of drugs, and any reaction against
this was surely an improvement. In short, no medicine at all was
much better than the heaping doses used in common practice; and
hence one advantage, at least, of Hahnemann’s methods. Stated
briefly, his theory was that if a tincture be reduced to
one-fiftieth in strength, and this again reduced to one-fiftieth,
and this process repeated up to thirty such dilutions, the
potency of such a medicine will be increased by each dilution,
Hahnemann himself preferring the weakest, or, as he would call
it, the strongest dilution. The absurdity of such a theory is
apparent when it is understood that long before any drug has been
raised to its thirtieth dilution it has been so reduced in
quantity that it cannot be weighed, measured, or recognized as
being present in the solution at all by any means known to
chemists. It is but just to modern followers of homoeopathy to
say that while most of them advocate small dosage, they do not
necessarily follow the teachings of Hahnemann in this respect,
believing that the theory of the dose “has nothing more to do
with the original law of cure than the psora (itch) theory has;
and that it was one of the later creations of Hahnemann’s mind.”
Hahnemann’s theory that all chronic diseases are derived from
either itch, syphilis, or fig-wart disease is no longer advocated
by his followers, because it is so easily disproved, particularly
in the case of itch. Hahnemann taught that fully three-quarters
of all diseases were caused by “itch struck in,” and yet it had
been demonstrated long before his day, and can be demonstrated
any time, that itch is simply a local skin disease caused by a
small parasite.
JENNER AND VACCINATIONAll advances in science have a bearing, near or remote, on the
welfare of our race; but it remains to credit to the closing
decade of the eighteenth century a discovery which, in its power
of direct and immediate benefit to humanity, surpasses any other
discovery of this or any previous epoch. Needless to say, I refer
to Jenner’s discovery of the method of preventing smallpox by
inoculation with the virus of cow-pox. It detracts nothing from
the merit of this discovery to say that the preventive power of
accidental inoculation had long been rumored among the peasantry
of England. Such vague, unavailing half-knowledge is often the
forerunner of fruitful discovery.
To all intents and purposes Jenner’s discovery was original and
unique. Nor, considered as a perfect method, was it in any sense
an accident. It was a triumph of experimental science. The
discoverer was no novice in scientific investigation, but a
trained observer, who had served a long apprenticeship in
scientific observation under no less a scientist than the
celebrated John Hunter. At the age of twenty-one Jenner had gone
to London to pursue his medical studies, and soon after he proved
himself so worthy a pupil that for two years he remained a member
of Hunter’s household as his favorite pupil. His taste for
science and natural history soon attracted the attention of Sir
Joseph Banks, who intrusted him with the preparation of the
zoological specimens brought back by Captain Cook’s expedition in
1771. He performed this task so well that he was offered the
position of naturalist to the second expedition, but declined it,
preferring to take up the practice of his profession in his
native town of Berkeley.
His many accomplishments and genial personality soon made him a
favorite both as a physician and in society. He was a good
singer, a fair violinist and flute-player, and a very successful
writer of prose and verse. But with all his professional and
social duties he still kept up his scientific investigations,
among other things making some careful observations on the
hibernation of hedgehogs at the instigation of Hunter, the
results of which were laid before the Royal Society. He also
made quite extensive investigations as to the geological
formations and fossils found in his neighborhood.
Even during his student days with Hunter he had been much
interested in the belief, current in the rural districts of
Gloucestershire, of the antagonism between cow-pox and smallpox,
a person having suffered from cow-pox being immuned to smallpox.
At various times Jenner had mentioned the subject to Hunter, and
he was constantly making inquiries of his fellow-practitioners as
to their observations and opinions on the subject. Hunter was too
fully engrossed in other pursuits to give the matter much serious
attention, however, and Jenner’s brothers of the profession gave
scant credence to the rumors, although such rumors were common
enough.
At this time the practice of inoculation for preventing
smallpox, or rather averting the severer forms of the disease,
was widely practised. It was customary, when there was a mild
case of the disease, to take some of the virus from the patient
and inoculate persons who had never had the disease, producing a
similar attack in them. Unfortunately there were many objections
to this practice. The inoculated patient frequently developed a
virulent form of the disease and died; or if he recovered, even
after a mild attack, he was likely to be “pitted” and disfigured.
But, perhaps worst of all, a patient so inoculated became the
source of infection to others, and it sometimes happened that
disastrous epidemics were thus brought about. The case was a
most perplexing one, for the awful scourge of smallpox hung
perpetually over the head of every person who had not already
suffered and recovered from it. The practice of inoculation was
introduced into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montague
(1690-1762), who had seen it practised in the East, and who
announced her intention of “introducing it into England in spite
of the doctors.”
From the fact that certain persons, usually milkmaids, who had
suffered from cow-pox seemed to be immuned to smallpox, it would
seem a very simple process of deduction to discover that cow-pox
inoculation was the solution of the problem of preventing the
disease. But there was another form of disease which, while
closely resembling cow-pox and quite generally confounded with
it, did not produce immunity. The confusion of these two forms of
the disease had constantly misled investigations as to the
possibility of either of them immunizing against smallpox, and
the confusion of these two diseases for a time led Jenner to
question the possibility of doing so. After careful
investigations, however, he reached the conclusion that there was
a difference in the effects of the two diseases, only one of
which produced immunity from smallpox.
“There is a disease to which the horse, from his state of
domestication, is frequently subject,” wrote Jenner, in his
famous paper on vaccination. “The farriers call it the grease.
It is an inflammation and swelling in the heel, accompanied at
its commencement with small cracks or fissures, from which issues
a limpid fluid possessing properties of a very peculiar kind.
This fluid seems capable of generating a disease in the human
body (after it has undergone the modification I shall presently
speak of) which bears so strong a resemblance to smallpox that I
think it highly probable it may be the source of that disease.
“In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, and the
office of milking is performed indiscriminately by men and maid
servants. One of the former having been appointed to apply
dressings to the heels of a horse affected with the malady I have
mentioned, and not paying due attention to cleanliness,
incautiously bears his part in milking the cows with some
particles of the infectious matter adhering to his fingers. When
this is the case it frequently happens that a disease is
communicated to the cows, and from the cows to the dairy-maids,
which spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and
domestics feel its unpleasant consequences. This disease has
obtained the name of Cow-Pox. It appears on the nipples of the
cows in the form of irregular pustules. At their first appearance
they are commonly of a palish blue, or rather of a color somewhat
approaching to livid, and are surrounded by an inflammation.
These pustules, unless a timely remedy be applied, frequently
degenerate into phagedenic ulcers, which prove extremely
troublesome. The animals become indisposed, and the secretion of
milk is much lessened. Inflamed spots now begin to appear on
different parts of the hands of the domestics employed in
milking, and sometimes on the wrists, which run on to
suppuration, first assuming the appearance of the small
vesications produced by a burn. Most commonly they appear about
the joints of the fingers and at their extremities; but whatever
parts are affected, if the situation will admit the superficial
suppurations put on a circular form with their edges more
elevated than their centre and of a color distinctly approaching
to blue. Absorption takes place, and tumors appear in each
axilla. The system becomes affected, the pulse is quickened;
shiverings, succeeded by heat, general lassitude, and pains about
the loins and limbs, with vomiting, come on. The head is
painful, and the patient is now and then even affected with
delirium. These symptoms, varying in their degrees of violence,
generally continue from one day to three or four, leaving
ulcerated sores about the hands which, from the sensibility of
the parts, are very troublesome and commonly heal slowly,
frequently becoming phagedenic, like those from which they
sprang. During the progress of the disease the lips, nostrils,
eyelids, and other parts of the body are sometimes affected with
sores; but these evidently arise from their being heedlessly
rubbed or scratched by the patient’s infected fingers. No
eruptions on the skin have followed the decline of the feverish
symptoms in any instance that has come under my inspection, one
only excepted, and in this case a very few appeared on the arms:
they were very minute, of a vivid red color, and soon died away
without advancing to maturation, so that I cannot determine
whether they had any connection with the preceding symptoms.
“Thus the disease makes its progress from the horse (as I
conceive) to the nipple of the cow, and from the cow to the human
subject.
“Morbid matter of various kinds, when absorbed into the system,
may produce effects in some degree similar; but what renders the
cow-pox virus so extremely singular is that the person that has
been thus affected is forever after secure from the infection of
smallpox, neither exposure to the variolous effluvia nor the
insertion of the matter into the skin producing this
distemper.”[2]
In 1796 Jenner made his first inoculation with cowpox matter, and
two months later the same subject was inoculated with smallpox
matter. But, as Jenner had predicted, no attack of smallpox
followed. Although fully convinced by this experiment that the
case was conclusively proven, he continued his investigations,
waiting two years before publishing his discovery. Then,
fortified by indisputable proofs, he gave it to the world. The
immediate effects of his announcement have probably never been
equalled in the history of
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