Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

58
FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE.
The steady evolution of scientific medicine brings us
next to Jenner's discovery of vaccination. Here, too, sunJ
dry 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 wha^
they do " : this book of Dr. Moseley was especially indorsee
by the Bishop of Dromore. In 1798 an Anti-vaccination S<
ciety was formed by physicians and clergymen, who callec
on the people of Boston to suppress vaccination, as " bidding
defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God," and d<
dared that " the law of God prohibits the practice." As late
as 1803 the Rev. Dr. Ramsden thundered against vaccina
tion in a sermon before the University of Cambridge, min-
gling 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
Diderot, vol. iii, pp. 259 et
seq. For bitter denunciations of inoculation tl by I
English clergy, and for the noble stand against them by Madox, see Baron, Life of
Jenner, vol. i, pp. 231, 232, and vol. ii, pp. 39, 40. For the strenuous opjjositior
of the same clergy, see Weld, History of the Royal Society, vol. i, p. 464, note
also, for its comical side, see Nichols's Literary Illustrations, vol. v, p. 800. Fo:
the same matter in Scotland, see Lecky's History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii
p. 83. For New England, see Green, History of Medicine in Massachusetts, Bos
ton, 1881, pp. 58 ct seq. ; also chapter x of the Memorial History of Boston, by thi
same author and O. W. Holmes. For letter of Dr. Franklin, see Massachusett
Histoiical Collections, second series, vol. vii, p. 17. Several most curious publica
tions issued during the heat of the inoculation controversy have been kindly placei
in my hands by the librarians of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts His
torical Society, among them A Reply to Increase Mather, by John Williams, Bos
ton, printed by J. Franklin, 1721, from which the above scriptural arguments ar
cited. For the terrible virulence of the smallpox in New England up to the ic
troduction of inoculation, see McMaster, History of the People of the United Staik
first edition, vol. i, p. 30.