French theologians of the Sorbonne solemnly condemned the practice. English theologians were most loudly represented by the Rev. Edward Massy, who, in 1722, preached a sermon in which he declared that Job's distemper was probably confluent small-pox, and that he had been doubtless inoculated by the devil—that diseases are sent by Providence for the punishment of sin, and that the proposed attempt to prevent them is "a diabolical operation." This sermon was entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation." Not less absurd was the sermon of the Rev. Mr. Delafaye, entitled "Inoculation an Indefensible Practice." Thirty years later the. struggle was still going on. It is a pleasure to note one great churchman, Maddox. Bishop of Worcester, giving battle on the side of right reason; but as late as 1753 we have the Rector of Canterbury denouncing inoculation from his pulpit in the primatial city, and many of his brethren following his example. Among the most common weapons hurled by churchmen at the supporters of inoculation, during all this long war, were charges of sorcery and atheism.[1]
Nor did Jenner's blessed discovery of Vaccination escape opposition on similar grounds. In 1798 an anti-vaccine society was formed by clergymen and physicians, calling on the people of England to suppress vaccination as "bidding defiance to Heaven itself—even to the will of God"—and declaring that "the law of God prohibits the practice." In 1803 the Rev. Dr. Ramsden thundered against it in a sermon before the University of Cambridge, mingling texts of Scripture with calumnies against Jenner; but Plumptre in England, Waterhouse in America, and a host of other good men and true, press forward to Jenner's side, and at last science, humanity, and right reason, gain the victory.[2]
But I pass to one typical conflict in our days. In 1847 James Young Simpson, a Scotch physician of eminence, advocated the use of Anæsthetics in obstetrical cases.
Immediately a storm arose. From pulpit after pulpit such a use of chloroform was denounced as impious. It was declared contrary to Holy Writ, and texts were cited abundantly. The ordinary declaration was, that to use chloroform was "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman."[3]
- ↑ See Sprengel, "Histoire de la Médecine," vol. vi., pp. 39-80. For the opposition of the Paris Faculty of Theology to inoculation, see the "Journal de Barbier," vol. vi., p. 294. For bitter denunciations of the inoculation by English clergy, and for the noble stand against them by Maddox, see Baron, "Life of Jenner," vol. i., pp. 231, 232, and vol. ii., pp. 39, 40. For the strenuous opposition of the same clergy, see Weld, "History of the Royal Society," vol. i., p. 464, note. Also, for the comical side of this matter, see Nichols's "Literary Illustrations," vol. v., p. 800.
- ↑ For the opposition of conscientious men in England to vaccination, see Duns, "Life of Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart.," London, 1873, pp. 248, 249; also Baron, "Life of Jenner," ubi supra, and vol. ii., p. 43; also "Works of Sir J. Y. Simpson," vol. ii.
- ↑ See Duns, "Life of Sir J. Y. Simpson," pp. 215-222.
