Edward Jenner and Smallpox etc

 I am reading a lot during lock-down and watching lots of classic films. I have been reading in a haphazard way the biographies of screen legends, and as a consequence I have got to appreciate the films more and more, especially the actors who were treated like property in those days. I put my toe into Anais Nin’s “Mirages” the unexpurgated diary. The opening has her on a sea clipper heading for New York. My goodness that is more sexy than her romps with Henry Miller!! I downloaded a clip of the sea clipper. Now that bird is for me one of the greatest aircraft next to a Dakota and the Lightning (Tiger Squadron). I really would have loved to have flown as a passenger one of those sea clippers. Associations are quite strange, but as I was reading about her boyfriend of “being” knotted, I thought of the lock-down! Then I thought of the letters of Lady Montagu which lead me to Charles Jenner – and I Googled the name to find out it was another Jenner I was interested in. Edward Jenner the eighteenth century country doctor who saved the World quite literally. I read the entire 184 pages of his biography in one sitting as if it were a Ross Macdonald crime noir. The only crimes committed were by the politicians and the medical establishment. I want to find Jenner’s note books because he was ahead of his times. As I write I am listening to Esther Ofarim whose voice I adore, I wish she had dumped Abi sooner for she is supreme as a soloist. Any way, back to Jenner. Bloody hell, I was crying as I read about his life. Really crying. He is buried with his wife in a vault in Berkley church in Gloucestershire, up the road from where I live. I shall make a pilgrimage there for sure. Now, Jenner was brought up by a family of natural historians, doctors and clergymen. He however did not take up the cloth. He studied natural history and medicine from an early age and became a doctor of renown. He was also very good at sorting through collections of fossils and the like – early on an advocate of Linnaeus’s system. Here is something I love about him. He had the chance to be on board with Captain Cook as a natural historian, but preferred as he did all this life, Gloucestershire. As a natural historian he believed in direct observation and scientific method. He studied with his mentor Hunter (buried in W. Abbey) and observed a cuckoo nestling push out the young of another bird. This observation contradicted the anecdotal evidence and made many natural historians furious. But it was a fact. He published it. In that period people had following the East been inoculated (Lady Montagu was instrumental in this), but people were dying in their thousands from smallpox. Indeed part of the problem was to do with the inoculation. Jenner was treating a milkmaid Sarah Nelmes who had “cow pox”infection shown in her hand who was immune to small pox. He realized the relationship and taking some lymph from the hand he inoculated a boy James Philps who proved to be subsequently immune!! His nephew had done detailed drawings of the vesicles and the treatment. He had to wait for more supplies of cow pox (the cows had actually been infected by the milkmaids) and then began to inoculate others. He was cautious about others taking on the treatment because they lacked his skills and his cleanliness. Eventually, slowly but surely from the farms and villages, he started in London, and has now there were anti-vaxers! They even prevented vaccination in Parliament in the 1840s!! But, Jenner won converts. He could have been a very rich man, but throughout his life he inoculated the poor and saved their lives. While he received a medal from all people Napoleon ( Jenner believed in medicine without borders!!!!!) and a diamond ring from a Tsarina, a temple built in his name, and countless letters, including one from Coleridge who wanted to write a poem about Jenner! What had me thinking he was a great man was that he used the money he got to pay for a ship bound for India. Within next to no time people were being vaccinated all over the world. The most prized gift he received was from Native American chiefs who sent him some beads and cowrie shells and a letter to thank him. The cow by the way was allowed to live out her life in a field. There are countless examples of his humility and kindness, as well as his defence of science against idiots. Yes, he should be mentioned in schools today! Especially now when there are squabbles over the Covid19 vaccine!!!!!