e steady evolution of scientific medicine brings us next to Jenner's
discovery of vaccination. Here, too, sundry vague survivals of
theological ideas caused many of the clergy to side with retrograde
physicians. Perhaps the most virulent of Jenner's enemies was one of his
professional brethren, Dr. Moseley, who placed on the title-page of his
book, Lues Bovilla, the motto, referring to Jenner and his followers,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do": this book of
Dr. Moseley was especially indorsed by the Bishop of Dromore. In 1798
an Anti-vaccination Society was formed by physicians and clergymen,
who called on the people of Boston to suppress vaccination, as "bidding
defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God," and declared that
"the law of God prohibits the practice." As late as 1803 the Rev. Dr.
Ramsden thundered against vaccination in a sermon before the University
of Cambridge, mingling texts of Scripture with calumnies against
Jenner; but Plumptre and the Rev. Rowland Hill in England, Waterhouse in
America, Thouret in France, Sacco in Italy, and a host of other good
men and true, pressed forward, and at last science, humanity, and right
reason gained the victory. Most striking results quickly followed.
The diminution in the number of deaths from the terrible scourge was
amazing. In Berlin, during the eight years following 1783, over four
thousand children died of the smallpox; while during the eight years
following 1814, after vaccination had been largely adopted, out of a
larger number of deaths there were but five hundred and thirty-five
from this disease. In Wurtemberg, during the twenty-four years following
1772, one in thirteen of all the children died of smallpox, while
during the eleven years after 1822 there died of it only one in sixteen
hundred. In Copenhagen, during twelve years before the introduction of
vaccination, fifty-five hundred persons died of smallpox, and during the
sixteen years after its introduction only one hundred and fifty-eight
persons died of it throughout all Denmark. In Vienna, where the average
yearly mortality from this disease had been over eight hundred, it was
steadily and rapidly reduced, until in 1803 it had fallen to less than
thirty; and in London, formerly so afflicted by this scourge, out of
all her inhabitants there died of it in 1890 but one. As to the world
at large, the result is summed up by one of the most honoured English
physicians of our ti