Fear over new vaccine
Jeremy Knight, curator at Horsham Museum & Art Gallery, provides an account of the impact of smallpox on 18th century society from his archives, with distinct parallels to current Covid events
Jeremy Knight shares an historic account of the impact smallpox had on 18th century society, with distinct parallels to current Covid events.
He is a most shocking figure... Smallpox is the most dreadful distemper that ever Human nature was afflicted with
SARAH HURST Diaries 1759-1763
Everyone is talking about the new Covid-19 vaccines. For many people, the word has an 18th century connotation, due to an enormously important scientific discovery, on par with the creation of the new Covid-19 vaccines.
In the 18th century in Europe, smallpox killed around 400,000 a year and many of those who survived were heavily scarred or went blind but, thanks to the aristocrat travel writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the technique of inoculation was introduced to England. First seen by her in Istanbul in 1717, inoculation involved placing a small amount of smallpox under a person’s skin, causing their body to create antibodies that would protect them from the full disease.
Today’s scientists ask for volunteers to test vaccines, however in 1721, the Royal Society instead watched it being given to prisoners of Newgate in return for the King’s favour. All prisoners survived and proved immune to smallpox. Less than a year later, the inoculation was tried on two royal princesses with success but due to its cost, inoculation did not become widespread until the 1760s.
The fatality rate with inoculation was ten times lower than naturally occurring smallpox but as we shall see, the fear of it remained.
In 1796, Dr Edward Jenner began work on a cure for smallpox. He had noticed dairymaids who had contracted cowpox did not get symptoms of smallpox, even when they were introduced to the disease.
Jenner began experimenting by using the puss from cowpox blisters to trigger a response in healthy human bodies to protect against the lethal disease, smallpox.
Horsham Museum and Art Gallery is fortunate to have the remarkable diaries of a bright young woman, Sarah Hurst, for 1759-1763. These provide a firsthand account of the impact of smallpox on 18th century society, with distinct parallels with current events:
October 29: Papa comes home from the fair very ill.
October 30: My father quite ill all night, good Heaven, sure he has not taken the smallpox when last in London.
October 31: My father extremely ill. Mama and I are frighten to death almost.
November 1: Doctor Smith thinks my father’s disorder is the smallpox. Mama in dreadful agonies; it is too much for me to bear my own sorrows, how little capable then of comforting her. He sends for Mr Powell and gives orders for the making his will, oh what a heart rending stroke is this.
November 2: Pass a most melancholy day in attendance on my poor father, various consultations about moving him, he desires to go to Mrs Wicker’s. She reluctantly consents.
November 4: We are in great perplexity because we cannot have the nurse my father depended upon, she was to come from Doctor Smith’s house but the patients will not part with her.
November 5. I ride over to the inoculating house, and beseech them to part with their nurse, they reluctantly consent. I ride home quiet rejoic’d & send my horse back for her.
November 9: My two uncles arriv’d late last night, the Doctor George thinks there is no danger in my father, so they set off again this morning. Go down Mrs Wicker’s garden and enquire how my father does. Doctor Smith calls to me & says he is tolerably well.
November 10: The doctor pronounces my father out of danger.
November 16: Go and see my father through the windows, he is a most shocking figure, sure the smallpox is the most dreadful distemper that ever human nature was afflicted with.
November 17: Mrs Wicker throws herself into hysterick fits for fear any of her neighbours shou’d take the Smallpox of my father, sure it wou’d be time enough to give herself so much uneasiness when such an event has happen’d but, as tho’ present evils were not sufficient, we are generally fond of anticipating future ones.
November 24: Ride over to Home Bush to see my father. We have a vast deal of conversation, he is quiet hearty.
December 2: My father comes down town and into the shop, a great many people welcomed him home.
Transmission was controlled in southern England by local practices of avoidance and mass inoculation. Avoidance measures included isolation in pest houses and private homes.
Horsham had a pest house, a cottage mentioned in local records in 1725. Located on the Common, it was reached by Pest House Lane which, in 1830, became New Street. Later, the vaccination hospital moved to Broadbridge Heath.
Smallpox was finally eradicated 40 years ago after a major concerted effort.