Edward Jenner / [Sir Buckston Browne].

  • Browne, G. Buckston (George Buckston), 1850-1945.
Date:
[1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Edward Jenner / [Sir Buckston Browne]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from The Medical Press and Circular, March 7th, 1934. EDWARD JENNER 1749-1823) By SIR BUCKSTON BROWNE, LL.D., F.R.ChS* A Trustee of the Hunterian Collection ; Honorary Gold Medalist of the Royal College of Surgeons of England ; Honorary Fellow of the Medical Society of London; Life President of the Harveian Medical Society of London. It is well-nigh impossible for those living in all the security of the twentieth century, obtained for us by the genius of two Englishmen, Jenner and Lister, fully to realise the horrors of that foul and cruel disease, Smallpox. It was never more rife in England than in the eighteenth century ; it yearly killed its thou¬ sands, and those who recovered were usually disfigured facially for life, and frequently blinded. George Canning (1770-1827), in one of his speeches, said : “ everyone must sooner or later expect to have the smallpox.” The disease attacked the high and the low ; it appeared in the palace and the hovel. In 1744, Louis XV of France, at thirty-four, died of smallpox ; many previous occupants of the French throne had died of the disease. The pathetic disfigurement of beautiful women by smallpox is dwelt upon by Thackeray in “ Esmond,” and by Dickens in “ Bleak House.” While in the “ Heart of Midlothian,” published in 1818, describing a scene happening in 1736, Sir Walter Scott makes special reference to Edward Jenner in eloquent terms. Jeanie Deans has walked to London from Scotland to plead for the life of her sister Efiie. The Duke of Argyle drives her to Richmond, and