In parts of Holstein, too, cowpox was regarded as good against smallpox, and on more than one occasion was deliberately employed for the purpose. Plett, a village schoolmaster, near Kiel, inoculated three children with the disease in 1791, who were afterwards credited with resisting variolous infection in consequence of their vaccination.[86]
How thoroughly the asserted prophylaxy of cowpox was known, Jenner himself was accustomed to bear witness. He was a member of two clubs, the Medico-Convivial which met at Rodborough, and the Convivio-Medical which met at Alveston; and he used to bring cowpox so persistently under discussion, that, he said, he was threatened with expulsion if he did not desist. “We know,” said the jovial doctors, “that an attack of cowpox is reputed to prevent smallpox, but we know that it does not, and that should end the matter.”[87]
In pursuance of the tactics that would represent Vaccination as the outcome of the labour of many years, we have the following extraordinary narrative from Baron, Jenner’s biographer--
It was not till 1780 that Jenner was enabled, after much study and inquiry, to unravel many of the perplexing obscurities and contradictions with which the question of cowpox was enveloped, and which had impressed those who knew the traditions of the country with the opinion that it defied all accurate and satisfactory elucidation. In the month of May of the year just mentioned, 1780, he first disclosed his hopes and his fears, respecting the great object of his pursuit, to his friend Edward Gardner. By this time _Jenner’s mind had caught a glimpse of the reputation which awaited him_, but it was still clouded by doubts and difficulties. He then seemed to feel that it might, in God’s good providence, _be his lot to stand between the living and the dead, and that through him a plague might be stayed_. On the other side, the dread of disappointment, and the probability of failing to accomplish his purpose, restrained that eagerness which otherwise would have prompted him prematurely to publish the result of his inquiries, and thereby, probably, by conveying insufficient knowledge, blight forever his favourite hope.[88]
Many are the marvellous relations in ancient and modern history, but in the records of the supernatural it is questionable if there be anything to match the preceding. Painters depict the runaway apprentice listening on Highgate Hill to the bells as they pealed, “Turn again Whittington, twice Lord Mayor of London,” but they might find a finer subject in the young Gloucestershire surgeon, aged 31, habited “in blue coat and yellow buttons, buckskins, well polished jockey boots with handsome silver spurs, a smart whip with silver handle, and hair done up in a club under a broad-brimmed hat,”[89] with eye fixed in vision, contemplating his glorious destiny, through clouds of doubt and difficulty, full twenty years ahead; standing like another Aaron, censer in hand, between the living and the dead until the plague was stayed! Verily, if we do not see miracles, it is because we do not choose to look for them.