Jefferson as a vacccinator / by Henry A. Martin.

  • Henry A. Martin
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Jefferson as a vacccinator / by Henry A. Martin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    10/36 page 8
    actively inoculated a large percentage of its population with virus obtained from one of those famous Vaccinifers of Woodville whose vaccina* was complicated with burdens of from 50 to 5000 pustules on all parts of the body. They alone know how bravely he met that mob of afflicted and enraged men, afflicted be- cause those near and dear to them were in the grasp of the destroyer, enraged because the professional brethren of Waterhouse had informed them that their affliction was but alcgitimate result of the new fangled inoculation which Waterhouse had so ardently taught. They knew, too, that that mob being neither one of medical or tlieo- logical bigots did ?2oHiang AVaterhouse or tar and feather him at least, which it must be feared would have been an exquisite gratifica- tions to the two hrethrcn who s/iOitM have been with him but were not, but listened to his calm, clear, honest, and under all the cir cumstances, marvellously sagacious aud accurate explanation of the disaster and accompanied him homeward with thanks and honor and cordial invitations to visit their town again. It is a pity that our profession should possess no memorial of a man in every way so worthy as Benjamin Waterhouse. It is a shame that the odium medi- corum which surely comes next, (the only question can be whether before or after) to that odium theologicum we have all heard about, should have succeeded in obliterating and obscuring the record of so much, and such rare sagacity and courage as his whole long life and his apostleship of vaccination displayed. Who knows or cares that this great aud good, and learned man labored, wrote, contended and impoverished himself in tlie long-contiuued and suc- cessful effort to make known the true doctrines of Jenner and vac- cination in America, and that when, in 1810, he petitioned the Legislature of Massachusetts to, in fome slight degree, reimburse him for what he had lost and suffered, he received from that august body ( Lobby'd'by the dignitaries of the Massachusetts Meaical Society) gracious permission to withdraw liis petition? Who knows or cares to know that the Medical Society of Massachu- setts, which had opposed Waterhouse and vaccination, as taught by Jenner, for ten long years, and won for Massachusetts, the dubious *Tlie terra vaccina Is the only one used by Jenner, Waterhouse and aU the earlier writers on vaccination. It Is correct, and, as there is no other reason for the termi- nation In ia except a silly eupheulsni. I have, in this paper, as in previous ones, chosen to resume the old, original and entirely correct word.—H. A. 3M.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3