A History of Science, vol 4, Henry Smith Williams [best books to read in life txt] 📗

>eighteenth century almost any theory was as good as the ones

propounded by Animists, Vitalists, and other such schools. It

certainly had the very commendable feature of introducing

simplicity in the use of drugs in place of the complicated

prescriptions then in vogue. Had Hahnemann stopped at this point

he could not have been held up to the indefensible ridicule that

was brought upon him, with considerable justice, by his later

theories. But he lived onto propound his extraordinary theory of

“potentiality”—that medicines gained strength by being

diluted—and his even more extraordinary theory that all chronic

diseases are caused either by the itch, syphilis, or fig-wart

disease, or are brought on by medicines.

 

At the time that his theory of potentialities was promulgated,

the medical world had gone mad in its administration of huge

doses of compound mixtures of drugs, and any reaction against

this was surely an improvement. In short, no medicine at all was

much better than the heaping doses used in common practice; and

hence one advantage, at least, of Hahnemann’s methods. Stated

briefly, his theory was that if a tincture be reduced to

one-fiftieth in strength, and this again reduced to one-fiftieth,

and this process repeated up to thirty such dilutions, the

potency of such a medicine will be increased by each dilution,

Hahnemann himself preferring the weakest, or, as he would call

it, the strongest dilution. The absurdity of such a theory is

apparent when it is understood that long before any drug has been

raised to its thirtieth dilution it has been so reduced in

quantity that it cannot be weighed, measured, or recognized as

being present in the solution at all by any means known to

chemists. It is but just to modern followers of homoeopathy to

say that while most of them advocate small dosage, they do not

necessarily follow the teachings of Hahnemann in this respect,

believing that the theory of the dose “has nothing more to do

with the original law of cure than the psora (itch) theory has;

and that it was one of the later creations of Hahnemann’s mind.”

 

Hahnemann’s theory that all chronic diseases are derived from

either itch, syphilis, or fig-wart disease is no longer advocated

by his followers, because it is so easily disproved, particularly

in the case of itch. Hahnemann taught that fully three-quarters

of all diseases were caused by “itch struck in,” and yet it had

been demonstrated long before his day, and can be demonstrated

any time, that itch is simply a local skin disease caused by a

small parasite.

JENNER AND VACCINATION

All advances in science have a bearing, near or remote, on the

welfare of our race; but it remains to credit to the closing

decade of the eighteenth century a discovery which, in its power

of direct and immediate benefit to humanity, surpasses any other

discovery of this or any previous epoch. Needless to say, I refer

to Jenner’s discovery of the method of preventing smallpox by

inoculation with the virus of cow-pox. It detracts nothing from

the merit of this discovery to say that the preventive power of

accidental inoculation had long been rumored among the peasantry

of England. Such vague, unavailing half-knowledge is often the

forerunner of fruitful discovery.

 

To all intents and purposes Jenner’s discovery was original and

unique. Nor, considered as a perfect method, was it in any sense

an accident. It was a triumph of experimental science. The

discoverer was no novice in scientific investigation, but a

trained observer, who had served a long apprenticeship in

scientific observation under no less a scientist than the

celebrated John Hunter. At the age of twenty-one Jenner had gone

to London to pursue his medical studies, and soon after he proved

himself so worthy a pupil that for two years he remained a member

of Hunter’s household as his favorite pupil. His taste for

science and natural history soon attracted the attention of Sir

Joseph Banks, who intrusted him with the preparation of the

zoological specimens brought back by Captain Cook’s expedition in

1771. He performed this task so well that he was offered the

position of naturalist to the second expedition, but declined it,

preferring to take up the practice of his profession in his

native town of Berkeley.

 

His many accomplishments and genial personality soon made him a

favorite both as a physician and in society. He was a good

singer, a fair violinist and flute-player, and a very successful

writer of prose and verse. But with all his professional and

social duties he still kept up his scientific investigations,

among other things making some careful observations on the

hibernation of hedgehogs at the instigation of Hunter, the

results of which were laid before the Royal Society. He also

made quite extensive investigations as to the geological

formations and fossils found in his neighborhood.

 

Even during his student days with Hunter he had been much

interested in the belief, current in the rural districts of

Gloucestershire, of the antagonism between cow-pox and smallpox,

a person having suffered from cow-pox being immuned to smallpox.

At various times Jenner had mentioned the subject to Hunter, and

he was constantly making inquiries of his fellow-practitioners as

to their observations and opinions on the subject. Hunter was too

fully engrossed in other pursuits to give the matter much serious

attention, however, and Jenner’s brothers of the profession gave

scant credence to the rumors, although such rumors were common

enough.

 

At this time the practice of inoculation for preventing

smallpox, or rather averting the severer forms of the disease,

was widely practised. It was customary, when there was a mild

case of the disease, to take some of the virus from the patient

and inoculate persons who had never had the disease, producing a

similar attack in them. Unfortunately there were many objections

to this practice. The inoculated patient frequently developed a

virulent form of the disease and died; or if he recovered, even

after a mild attack, he was likely to be “pitted” and disfigured.

But, perhaps worst of all, a patient so inoculated became the

source of infection to others, and it sometimes happened that

disastrous epidemics were thus brought about. The case was a

most perplexing one, for the awful scourge of smallpox hung

perpetually over the head of every person who had not already

suffered and recovered from it. The practice of inoculation was

introduced into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montague

(1690-1762), who had seen it practised in the East, and who

announced her intention of “introducing it into England in spite

of the doctors.”

 

From the fact that certain persons, usually milkmaids, who had

suffered from cow-pox seemed to be immuned to smallpox, it would

seem a very simple process of deduction to discover that cow-pox

inoculation was the solution of the problem of preventing the

disease. But there was another form of disease which, while

closely resembling cow-pox and quite generally confounded with

it, did not produce immunity. The confusion of these two forms of

the disease had constantly misled investigations as to the

possibility of either of them immunizing against smallpox, and

the confusion of these two diseases for a time led Jenner to

question the possibility of doing so. After careful

investigations, however, he reached the conclusion that there was

a difference in the effects of the two diseases, only one of

which produced immunity from smallpox.

 

“There is a disease to which the horse, from his state of

domestication, is frequently subject,” wrote Jenner, in his

famous paper on vaccination. “The farriers call it the grease.

It is an inflammation and swelling in the heel, accompanied at

its commencement with small cracks or fissures, from which issues

a limpid fluid possessing properties of a very peculiar kind.

This fluid seems capable of generating a disease in the human

body (after it has undergone the modification I shall presently

speak of) which bears so strong a resemblance to smallpox that I

think it highly probable it may be the source of that disease.

 

“In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, and the

office of milking is performed indiscriminately by men and maid

servants. One of the former having been appointed to apply

dressings to the heels of a horse affected with the malady I have

mentioned, and not paying due attention to cleanliness,

incautiously bears his part in milking the cows with some

particles of the infectious matter adhering to his fingers. When

this is the case it frequently happens that a disease is

communicated to the cows, and from the cows to the dairy-maids,

which spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and

domestics feel its unpleasant consequences. This disease has

obtained the name of Cow-Pox. It appears on the nipples of the

cows in the form of irregular pustules. At their first appearance

they are commonly of a palish blue, or rather of a color somewhat

approaching to livid, and are surrounded by an inflammation.

These pustules, unless a timely remedy be applied, frequently

degenerate into phagedenic ulcers, which prove extremely

troublesome. The animals become indisposed, and the secretion of

milk is much lessened. Inflamed spots now begin to appear on

different parts of the hands of the domestics employed in

milking, and sometimes on the wrists, which run on to

suppuration, first assuming the appearance of the small

vesications produced by a burn. Most commonly they appear about

the joints of the fingers and at their extremities; but whatever

parts are affected, if the situation will admit the superficial

suppurations put on a circular form with their edges more

elevated than their centre and of a color distinctly approaching

to blue. Absorption takes place, and tumors appear in each

axilla. The system becomes affected, the pulse is quickened;

shiverings, succeeded by heat, general lassitude, and pains about

the loins and limbs, with vomiting, come on. The head is

painful, and the patient is now and then even affected with

delirium. These symptoms, varying in their degrees of violence,

generally continue from one day to three or four, leaving

ulcerated sores about the hands which, from the sensibility of

the parts, are very troublesome and commonly heal slowly,

frequently becoming phagedenic, like those from which they

sprang. During the progress of the disease the lips, nostrils,

eyelids, and other parts of the body are sometimes affected with

sores; but these evidently arise from their being heedlessly

rubbed or scratched by the patient’s infected fingers. No

eruptions on the skin have followed the decline of the feverish

symptoms in any instance that has come under my inspection, one

only excepted, and in this case a very few appeared on the arms:

they were very minute, of a vivid red color, and soon died away

without advancing to maturation, so that I cannot determine

whether they had any connection with the preceding symptoms.

 

“Thus the disease makes its progress from the horse (as I

conceive) to the nipple of the cow, and from the cow to the human

subject.

 

“Morbid matter of various kinds, when absorbed into the system,

may produce effects in some degree similar; but what renders the

cow-pox virus so extremely singular is that the person that has

been thus affected is forever after secure from the infection of

smallpox, neither exposure to the variolous effluvia nor the

insertion of the matter into the skin producing this

distemper.”[2]

 

In 1796 Jenner made his first inoculation with cowpox matter, and

two months later the same subject was inoculated with smallpox

matter. But, as Jenner had predicted, no attack of smallpox

followed. Although fully convinced by this experiment that the

case was conclusively proven, he continued his investigations,

waiting two years before publishing his discovery. Then,

fortified by indisputable proofs, he gave it to the world. The

immediate effects of his announcement have probably never been

equalled in the history of