Needles in medical history : an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Gallery, April 1998 / Ken Arnold [and others].

Date:
[1998?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Needles in medical history : an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Gallery, April 1998 / Ken Arnold [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the National Anti-Vaccination league), which provided the focus of activity during the 1880s and early 1890s in lobbying parliamentary support, and which had its moment of glory in 1909 when Parliament rescinded compulsory vaccination. Parallel to these grassroots protests and opposition from different medical viewpoints, one may discern a lasting ambiguity towards Jenner - and more widely towards the medical pro- fession - among the political establishment. This surfaced most conspicuously in the great statue controversy. As early as March 1823, when the House of Commons was voting on the annual grant for the National Vaccine Establishment, an unsuccessful attempt was made to secure public funds for a Jenner monument. Further agitation for a statue arose in 1851. At the Great Exhibition, the sculptor, William Calder Marshall, displayed a model for a Jenner statue; this induced a number of medical men to form a committee to raise funds for its casting. As the money trickled in, the question arose of where in London it should be erected. In 1857 a London Bridge position was being considered, and then the idea of a still more illustrious siting in the new Trafalgar Square was floated. By August of that year, the Queen had granted her permission for siting the statue there, and plans were laid for the inauguration. A formal ceremony was held in the hall of the Royal College of Physicians, then in Pall Mall East, on the corner of Trafalgar Square, on 17 May 1858, the anniversary of Jenner's death. Yet, far from immortalizing Jenner the statue immediately became the centre of controversy. The MP Thomas Duncombe attacked it in the Commons; according to Hansard: He [Mr Duncombe] did not mean to say that a statue of Jenner was not a very good thing in its proper place, but he thought it altogether out of place among statues of our naval and military heroes. He hoped...that some independendent Member would move an Address to the Crown for the removal of this promulgator of cow-pock nonsense from its position in Trafalgar Square. Despite arguments in both directions, the following sorry paragraph appeared in the 'news' section of the 15 February 1862 issue of the British Medical Journal, under the headline REMOVAL OF THE STATUE OF DR JENNER: During the last few days the public have been surprised, on visiting Kensington Gardens, to find the statue of Dr Jenner, of smallpox-vaccina- tion celebrity standing, or rather sitting down, with its usual air of placidity,