Exit Dr. Jenner : a speech at the Annual Meeting of the National Anti-Vaccination League in Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 27th February, 1906 / by C. Creighton.

  • Creighton, Charles, 1847-1927.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Exit Dr. Jenner : a speech at the Annual Meeting of the National Anti-Vaccination League in Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 27th February, 1906 / by C. Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Wilberforce being one of those who backed him. Just before Dr. Jenner got his second grant—this time, ,£20,000 —the College of Physicians were asked by Government to inquire why vaccination was making so slow progress, and they gave it as one reason, perhaps their principal reason, that so long as inoculation of smallpox was allowed to go on vaccination would not have a fair chance. Next year, 1808, a Bill was introduced which proposed to put inoculation down by penalties, but it was thrown out. In 1813, the National Vaccine Board, which was the Government estab- lishment for vaccination at that time, promoted another Bill which, if passed, would have resulted in putting down the old inoculation and the establishment of Jenner’s vaccination at the expense of the poor rate. That was fought in the House of Lords by the Law Lords, and thrown out. From that time for the next 27 years, nothing more was heard against the old inoculation, which went on flourishing, and was so powerful a rival of Jenner’s cowpox, that the latter, in spite of all the money voted for its discovery, was likely to go under. Then in 1840 came the first Vaccination Act which Dr. Baron, Jenner’s executor, had been working for. It was not a compulsory Act. It was only an Act to enable the Poor Law Guardians to pav for the vaccination of infants of the working classes out of the rates without pauperising those who got the benefit of it. But the Bill contained a clause to stop the old inoculation altogether, which had been a thriving rival, always going side by side with Jenner’s, up to that time. The clause was directed in the first instance against amateurs and empirics; but a former editor of the Lancet Mr. Wakley, who was member for Finsbury, got the clause amended so as to include medical men, so that the use of