Viruses, Variolation & Vaccines (Part 5)
“Control over mankind”. The legacy of William Wilberforce
As readers of this series will recall, the very idea of variolation has been characterised as “odd”, “bizarre”, and an “affront to common sense” - not by its detractors, but by admirers past and present.1 With the advent of the vaccination era the absurdities continued, whether they related to Edward Jenner himself (as we saw last time) or to his discovery.
For instance, although Jenner maintained that smallpox was the result of humanity getting too close to other creatures, using his vaccine meant strengthening that connection even more. It is difficult to imagine a closer bond between human and animal than having extract of cow inserted into your bloodstream.2
But where does weirdness end and wickedness begin?
Up to 1800, as I outlined in previous instalments, variolation (or inoculation with smallpox) was seen by medical and lay folk alike as a boon to mankind. Now those behind the vaccine wanted the procedure banned.
I argued in Part 4 that Jenner was fortunate in both the timing and the location of his discovery. England’s legal jurisdiction may have been limited to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But its status and influence reached far beyond its own geographical boundaries. England ruled over extensive colonial possessions in almost every part of the world. It was well on the way to ending the threat posed by its great rival, France. On top of that, England’s Industrial Revolution was transforming society in ways that reverberate to this day.
If, as a medical historian has observed, England had become “the international centre for variolation” by the end of the 18th century, it was now the hub of a worldwide vaccine revolution.3 An important element of this revolution was the legislation passed at Westminster, the so-called “mother of parliaments”.
Last time I mentioned a House of Commons debate about Jenner’s vaccine. That debate took place on July 8th 1806, only a few years after the vaccine had been launched. Although the British establishment was behind Jenner’s discovery, one member of parliament (MP) seemed worried about the public’s continued preference for variolation over vaccination. As the debate continued, a resolution of this problem was proposed by another speaker, William Wilberforce (1759-1833).
For almost 20 years, Wilberforce had been campaigning to end Britain’s dominant role in the slave trade between Africa and its colonies in the Americas. Because of his persistent efforts on behalf of enslaved Africans, Wilberforce gained the adulation of his fellow MPs. This was never clearer than on 23rd February 1807 when the Slave Trade Act was passed by a huge majority.
The House rose almost to a man and turned towards Wilberforce in a burst of Parliamentary cheers. Suddenly, above the roar of ‘hear, hear’ and quite out of order, three hurrahs echoed and echoed while he sat, head bowed, tears streaming down his face.4
To this day Wilberforce’s reputation is on a par with that of Edward Jenner as one of humanity’s greatest benefactors.5 Amazing Grace, a Hollywood film about Wilberforce, described him as “the man who changed history”.6 That description was a tribute to his anti-slavery campaigning. But in his speech during the vaccine debate Wilberforce changed history in another way too.
The laws of quarantine have continued long enough to be enforced, and have been found to be attended with infinite advantage. These may be deemed a constraint upon the public, but having proved so beneficial, why not impose the same control over mankind in other cases where communications with the diseased may be attended with dangerous consequences?7
Although Wilberforce tried to row back on this part of his speech later, the cat was well and truly out of the bag. His phrase “control over mankind” became the guiding principle of those behind the vaccine initiative. The implications were huge, affecting the lives of people yet unborn.
It turned out that, not only was Wilberforce an early advocate of the vaccine, he was acquainted personally with its inventor, Edward Jenner. Following the triumph of his anti-slavery campaign, Wilberforce revealed to parliament that “Dr. Jenner generally attended his children”.8 In other words Jenner was the Wilberforce family doctor.9 Moreover the two men had been discussing for several years how Wilberforce could support in parliament what he described as Jenner’s “valuable discovery”.10
The Jenner/Wilberforce alliance was one of the first examples of the collusion between medicine and politics that pushed vaccines relentlessly throughout the 19th century.
As early as 1808 an unsuccessful attempt was made in the British parliament to outlaw variolation. In 1813 Jenner himself helped draft another bill with the same intention, but that was also defeated. For the next three decades the medical lobbyists continued to pressure MPs and the Lords, claiming that if the people switched from variolation to vaccination, “smallpox would entirely cease”.11 Eventually they got their way.
In March 1840, the Marquess of Lansdowne brought to the attention of the House of Lords a petition supported by “1,200 medical practitioners”.12 According to the speaker, the doctors wanted variolation banned as it had led to “thousands of deaths in the course of a few years”. “It was necessary”, he continued, “that ignorant people should be prevented, by legal enactments, from doing evil to others”. Therefore, the noble spokesman asserted, only “members of the medical profession” should be permitted to administer the approved preventative measure against smallpox: Jenner’s vaccine.
By July the legislation had been signed into law by Queen Victoria.13 The new Vaccination Act wielded a stick and offered a carrot. Lay inoculators who provided variolation faced imprisonment of up to one month. The poor, on the other hand, could receive a free vaccination service from “any legally qualified Medical Practitioner”, who would receive “remuneration” for his trouble. Speaking in parliament, the Attorney-General summed up the thinking behind the new statute:
When it was seen that the House of Commons had almost unanimously agreed that inoculation ought to be abolished, he trusted that the measure would meet with the general concurrence of the public.14
Although the Act did not alter public behaviour overnight, an important precedent had been enshrined in law: when it came to public health, the common good trumped individual freedom. Back in 1721, Daniel Defoe had pointed out the limitations on enforcement of the then-revolutionary smallpox antidote: variolation.
We have these things call'd priviledges [sic] and liberties, which will not allow the Government to proceed with the people as they do in France.15
A century later those liberties were becoming a distant memory as what has been described as the “vaccination juggernaut” continued to erode personal choice.16 It was not enough to encourage vaccination; it had to be made compulsory.
In March 1853 a recently-formed medical lobby group, the Epidemiological Society of London, rushed out a report written by its “Small-Pox and Vaccination Committee”.17 The society wanted to ensure that a proposed new vaccination bill before Parliament reflected its views before it was finalised.
Here is a summary of the report’s conclusions:
Everyone is susceptible to smallpox. Only those who have already been through it or who have been vaccinated are safe.
Smallpox kills 20-25% of those who contract it, and “in many instances” does permanent physical damage to those who survive.
Most smallpox fatalities are among children, so “early vaccination… as soon after birth as possible” is vital.
Doctors are agreed “that vaccination is a perfectly safe and efficient prophylactic against this disease”.
Through “ignorance” and “foolish prejudice”, too many people are refusing vaccination for themselves and their children. So legal compulsion is needed “to ensure the efficient protection of the population of this country from the ravages of small-pox”.
“Underpaid public vaccinators” must be adequately compensated for their “additional and onerous duties”, and “private practitioners” should be allowed to demand whatever fees they liked.
The public accepts that no one should have the right to kill or harm another person. As the report put it, “we submit that it is but an extension of this principle to apply it to the questions of life and health”.
The bill passed of course.18 As the years went by it was followed by another, and another, and another. The cumulative effect was to instil in the public mind the belief that vaccination was here to stay. If it had ever registered at all, Wilberforce’s slip about “control over mankind” was quickly forgotten as “safe and effective” became the phrase most often associated with the vaccine.
As Jenner predicted, smallpox was eradicated. By then the vaccine had become ubiquitous. It has now been absorbed unquestioningly into the very fabric of human life. For many parents vaccination is an essential rite of passage before their child can be admitted fully into society.
The bizarre has become commonplace.
More in Part 6.
“One of the greatest successes of medicine at that time” (Gareth Williams, Angel of Death: The story of Smallpox (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 146.). “None better known for efficacy than inoculation [variolation]” (Inoculation’ (tr. Antoinette Emch-Deriaz) in The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.954], 22 Apr. 2022.).
A description of commercial vaccine production in 1906 pulls no punches: “Calves, often kept in squalid conditions, had their flanks shaved and inoculated with lymph from whichever source. After ten days, the blisters were cut open and the fluid allowed to run into a vessel pressed against the animal's skin.” (Williams, Angel of Death, p. 270.)
Ibid, p. 142.
John Pollock, Wilberforce (London, 1977), p. 211.
In 2002 Wilberforce and Jenner were voted into the Top 100 Great Britons in a poll conducted among viewers of BBC television. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/ 2208671.stm], 14 May 2022.
‘Amazing Grace movie trailer’, YouTube, 20 Dec 2006 (
15 Mar. 2021.
Hansard, HC Deb 2 Jul. 1806, vol. 7, col 887.
Hansard, HC Deb 29 Jul. 1807, vol. 9, col 1014.
They probably met in the city of Bath, about 30 miles south of Berkeley where Jenner lived. Wilberforce frequently stayed in Bath with his family for months at a time. Jenner also visited Bath periodically, both to treat patients and visit friends.
Letter from Wilberforce to Jenner, 24 Feb. 1802, quoted in John Baron, The life of Edward Jenner (2 vols, London, 1838), i. pp. 488-9.
Hansard, HC Deb 17 Jun 1840, vol. 54, col 1246.
Hansard, HL Deb 10 Mar 1840, vol. 52, col 1110-1.
An Act to Extend the Practice of Vaccination, Jul. 1840.
Hansard, HC Deb 17 Jun 1840, vol. 54, col 1260.
Quoted in Richard Mead, A discourse on the small pox and measles (London, 1748), p. 293.
Williams, Angel of Death, p. 235.
Report on the State of Small-Pox and Vaccination in England and Wales and other Countries, and on Compulsory Vaccination, 3 May, 1853.
An Act further to extend and make compulsory the Practice of Vaccination, 20 Aug 1853.