The Bishop was singularly at fault in his ascription of diminished mortality to inoculation, for, in 1752, smallpox was more than unusually rife in the Metropolis, and its prevalence was not unreasonably attributed to infection from the inoculated. In 1751 the deaths from smallpox in London were 998; they rose to 3538 in 1752; declined to 774 in 1753; and rose to 2359 in 1754.
Dr. Doddridge lent his powerful influence in favour of inoculation; and, considering the unqualified assertions of medical men as to its benefits and harmlessness, it cannot be said he was blameworthy. The audacious assurance with which many of them bore down opposition overcame the simple-minded, who argued as if the world were constituted after the pattern of their own innocent hearts. That smallpox frequently followed inoculation is now known beyond dispute, and yet Dr. Kirkpatrick wrote--
I have heard myself a great many rumours of the inoculated being naturally infected afterwards, which upon examination proved just as many lies.[55]
How could women and divines resist such evidence?
A voluble antagonist of inoculation was the Rev. Theodore Delafaye of Canterbury. He preached a sermon in that city on the 3rd of June, 1753, from the text, “Let us do evil that good may come” (Rom. iii. 8), and published it under the title of _Inoculation an Indefensible Practice_. He was in turn attacked by the inoculators, and in 1754 issued _A Vindication_ of 200 pages, in which he returned more than he received with vigour rather than discretion. His conclusion was--
Inoculation I maintain to be, in a religious and moral view, a self-destructive, inhuman, and impious machination, and in a physical one an unreasonable, unnatural, unlawful, most hazardous, ineffectual, fruitless, uncertain, unnecessary device; in a word, a practice which nature recoils at, which reason opposes, and which religion condemns.
We sometimes read that inoculation was denounced as Atheism, and we are expected to reprobate or to smile at the bigotry; and, whilst we may not approve of the stigma, we may at the same time recognise the honest sense in which it might be affixed. Some who spoke of inoculation as Atheistic felt more vividly than they could otherwise describe, that it was an infraction of the deeper sanctity of Nature, where man’s hand cannot enter and prosper, and that those who made the attempt could have no proper sense of Him in whom they lived, and moved, and had their being. Moreover, if we are to admit that they who thus expressed themselves are blameable for excessive vehemence, what are we to say of the more numerous party who did not hesitate to pronounce inoculation a discovery effected in the human mind by God himself? If it was reasonable to speak of the practice as Theistic, why should it be fanatical to assert the contrary, and maintain that it involved a negation of Divine Providence? Dr. Kirkpatrick, with the sycophancy which was the custom of his age, praised George II. for “the benevolent, and even celestial disposition,” which induced him to patronise “the wonderful and probably Heaven-descended practice of inoculation;” and extolled “its equal simplicity and success” as demonstrating “to a reflective mind the goodness of Providence in making what may be so often necessary, so easily accomplished.”[56] It would not be difficult to cite scores of confessions of gratitude to God for inoculation, but to what purpose?