Part 11

"Sir:

"I have received the copy of the evidence at large respecting the discovery of the vaccine inoculation, which you have been pleased to send me, and for which I return you my thanks. Having been among the early converts in this part of the globe to its efficacy, I took an early part in recommending it to my countrymen. I avail myself of this occasion to render you my portion of the tribute of gratitude due to you from the whole human family. Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was a beautiful addition to our knowledge of the human economy; but on a review of the practice of medicine before and since that epoch, I do not see any great amelioration which has been derived from that discovery. You have erased from the calender of human afflictions one of its greatest. Yours is the comfortable reflection that mankind can never forget that you have lived; future nations will know by history only that the {105} loathsome small-pox has existed, and by you has been extirpated. Accept the most fervent wishes for your health and happiness, and assurances of the greatest respect and consideration.

"Th. Jefferson."

Almost more interesting than the story of Jenner, the experimental scientist, the true harbinger of modern experimental medicine, the founder of experimental pathology, and the discoverer of the pregnant idea which was to mean so much for nineteenth century medicine in the hands of Pasteur and his successors, is the story of Jenner the man, the husband, the friend, and the physician of the poor. In spite of his intense preoccupation in his experimental work and the amount of time it must have required to make his observations, he found opportunities to care for the poor and to interest himself in all their concerns as well as their health. He made many firm friends among people of his own social status and generally was considered a most amiable, as well as a liberal, and humanitarian man. He was deeply religious, and, as we shall allow his earliest biographer Dr. Baron to tell, was not ashamed to exhibit his religious feelings by word and deed when the proper occasion presented itself. This part of his life deserves to be studied as carefully and remembered as faithfully as that in which he made his discoveries, since it is the complement that shows the character of the man in its entirety.

Jenner's personal character may be very well understood from a paragraph of his biographer, who had been his bosom friend for many years. He says:

"But Dr. Jenner was not only humble in all that concerned this, the greatest incident of his life (the successful discovery of vaccination); he continued so after success had crowned {106} his labors, and after applause greater than most men can bear had been bestowed upon him. This most estimable quality was visible at all times; but it was particularly conspicuous when he was living in familiar intercourse with the inhabitants of his native village. If the reader could in imagination accompany me with him to the dwellings of the poor, and see him kindly and heartily inquiring into their wants, and entering into all the little details of their domestic economy; or if he could have witnessed him listening with perfect patience and good humor to the history of their maladies, he would have seen an engaging instance of untiring benevolence. He never was unwilling to receive any one, however unseasonable the time may have been. Such were his habits, even to the latest period of his life. I scarcely know any part of his character that was more worthy of imitation and unqualified respect than that to which I have alluded. I have never seen any person in any station of life in whom it was equally manifest; and when it is remembered that he was well 'stricken in years;' that he had been a most indefatigable and successful laborer in the cause of humanity; and that he might have sought for a season of repose, and the uncontrolled disposal of his own time, the sacrifices which he made are the more to be valued. In the active and unostentatious exercise of kindness and charity he spent his days; and he seemed ever to feel that he was one of those 'qui se natos ad homines juvandos, tutandos, conservandos arbitrantur,' who consider themselves born to help, protect, and cherish their fellow men.

"His kindness and condescension to the poor was equalled by his most considerate respect and regard to the feelings and character of the humblest of his professional brethren. I have often been struck with the total absence of everything that could bear the semblance of loftiness of demeanor. {107} Few men were more entitled to deliver their sentiments in a confident or authoritative tone; but his whole deportment was opposed to everything of that description, and he did not hesitate to seek knowledge from persons in all respects his inferiors. All his younger brethren who have ever had the happiness to meet him in practice, must have been deeply impressed with this part of his character."

Many a member of the medical profession who is not a genius will find an excuse for allowing disorder about his rooms from the example which is said to have been set by Jenner. He was interested in nearly every branch of science and specimens from many departments were constantly around him. He himself, it is said, had the key to the apparent confusion. Most of the others who allow themselves to drift into careless habits in the same direction insist that they too have the key. Some of their friends, however, are inclined to doubt it. It is curiously interesting under these circumstances to have Jenner's biographer tell of the confused state of affairs that existed in his room and yet his defence of it. Perhaps in this matter it is well to remember what Augustin Birrell says at the end of his essay on Carlisle:

"Don't let us quarrel with genius; we have none of it ourselves and the worst of it is we cannot get along without it."

"The objects of his studies generally lay scattered around him; and, as he used often to say himself, seemingly in chaotic confusion. Fossils, and other specimens of natural history, anatomical preparations, books, papers, letters--all presented themselves in strange disorder; but every article bore the impress of the genius that presided there. The fossils were marked by small pieces of paper pasted on them, having their names and the places where they were found inscribed in his own plain and distinct handwriting. {108} His materials for thought and conversation were thus constantly before him; and a visitor, on entering his apartment, would find in abundance traces of all his private occupations. He seemed to have no secrets of any kind; and, notwithstanding a long experience with the world, he acted to the last as if all mankind were as trustworthy and free from selfishness as himself. He had a working head, being never idle, and accumulated a great store of original observations. These treasures he imparted most generously and liberally. Indeed his chief pleasure seemed to be in pouring out the ample riches of his mind to everyone who enjoyed his acquaintance. He had often reason to lament this undoubted confidence; but such ungrateful returns neither chilled his ardor nor ruffled his temper."

It is interesting to note what was Jenner's opinion with regard to two subjects that are very much discussed at the present time. These are the questions of religious training in education, and the advisability of making nature study a part of the course for children. Jenner considered that no education could possibly be complete which did not include both of these subjects. Religious training he deemed absolutely indispensable. Nature study he advised for somewhat different reasons from those for which it is now urged. He thought there was a depth of interest in the study of the objects of nature that could scarcely fail to lessen the burden of education for the child, but the main reason for its study to his mind was that children intent on the wonders of nature could scarcely help but realize the power of the Creator and, learning to admire Him more and more, be thus drawn to respect His laws, to acknowledge His supremacy and to devote themselves to bringing about the fulfilment of His will in this world to the fullest extent in their power.

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Jenner's religious opinions and beliefs must be left to the expression of the biographer already mentioned, who gives them very fully. He says:

"One of the most remarkable features in Jenner's character, when treating of questions of a moral or scientific nature, was a devout expression of his consciousness of the omnipresence of the Deity. He believed that this great truth was too much overlooked in our systems of education; that it ought to be constantly impressed upon the youthful heart, and that the obligations which it implied, as well as the inward truth and purity which it required, should be rendered more familiar to all. Mrs. Jenner was constantly occupied in teaching these lessons to the poor around her, in schools which she established for the purpose of affording a scriptural education. He, building upon this foundation, wished to add instruction of a more practical description, deduced from their daily experience, and illustrated by a reference to those works of wisdom and beauty which the universe supplies. He always contended that some aid of of this kind was necessary to impress completely upon the character of the lower ranks those maxims which they derived from their teachers. He had other views, too, in recommending such a plan; he thought that the lot of the poor might be ameliorated, and many sources of amusement and information laid open to them which they are at present deprived of; that the flowers of the field and the wonders of the animal creation might supply them with subjects of useful knowledge and pious meditation."

His wife, as is often, though unfortunately not always, the case, seems to have had that precious uplifting influence over him which served continually as an incentive to higher things and kept him from the sterile materialism which an exclusive absorption in scientific studies, with lack of the {110} exercise of faith and of association with human suffering, seems to bring to many men. Dr. Baron says on this point:

"I remember, when discussing with him certain questions touching the conditions of man in this life, and dwelling upon his hopes, his fears, his pains, and his joys, and coming to the conclusions which merely human reason discloses to us; and when dwelling on the deformity of the heart, our blindness, our ignorance, the evils connected with our physical structures, our crimes, our calamities, and our unfathomable capacity both for suffering and for enjoyment; he observed, Mrs. Jenner can explain all these things: they cause no difficulties to her."

Toward the end of his life Jenner's feelings with regard to the importance of a confident other worldliness as the only fitting explanation for the mysteries of this, became emphasized. To quote his biographer once more:

"As he approached nearer to his own end, his conversations with myself were generally more or less tinged with such views as occur to the serious mind when contemplating the handiwork of the Creator. In all the confusion and disorder which appears in the physical world, and in all the anomalies and errors which deface the moral, he saw convincing demonstration that He who formed all things out of nothing still wields and guides the machinery of his mighty creation."

Jenner's feelings with regard to the relative importance of medical and religious ministrations may be very well appreciated from an expression of his on the occasion when he was being presented to a distinguished nobleman by the famous missionary, Roland Hill. The Reverend Mr. Hill said: "Allow me to present your Lordship my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has been the means of saving more lives than any other man." "Ah," responded Jenner, "were I like {111} you I could save souls." In his sketch of Jenner's life in "The Disciples of AEsculapius," Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson considers that this incident shows a lack of appreciation of the dignity of the medical profession and a humility rather difficult to understand. Anyone who will place himself in Jenner's position of fervent belief that the one thing necessary is the salvation of souls will not fail to recognize, however, his sincerity or fail to appreciate its true significance.

After all, Jenner was so deeply impressed with the importance of other worldly things and the comparative insignificance of this that he found it even a little difficult to understand why men should not see the direct action of the Creator and all His providence in even some of the minutest details of life. Once he said, "I do not marvel that men are grateful to me, but I am surprised that they do not feel grateful to God for making me a medium of good."

Few men who have accomplished so much have felt so little vainglory over it as Jenner. There was not a jot or tittle of what is so rightly called conceit in him. He well deserves a place beside such beautiful characters as Morgagni, Auenbrugger, Laennec and Pasteur, whose work was done for others, not for themselves, and after all the most striking definition of a saint is one who thinks first of others and only second of himself.

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GALVANI, FOUNDER OF ANIMAL ELECTRICITY

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The world that I regard is myself; it is the Microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and Fortunes, do err in my Altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the Heaven above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us; that mass of Flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind; that surface that tells the Heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any: I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty; though the number of the Arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind; whilst I study to find how I am a Microcosm, or little World, I find myself something more than the great one. There is surely a piece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. --Sir Thos. Browne, M.D.

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GALVANI, FOUNDER OF ANIMAL ELECTRICITY.