With little ability to make and maintain ground, Jenner, like many feeble folk, had the faculty of converting those he called his friends to his private advantage. He did not subdue them by will, but by weakness. Indeed, whoever chooses to observe will often have to mark with amaze how stronger natures suffer their means and energies to be appropriated by inferior organisms, and used with the thanklessness of rightful possession.
John Ring was a remarkable instance of this sort of possession. He was a surgeon in New Street, Hanover Square, London. In 1799 he entered into correspondence with Jenner, and his interest in cowpox and its advertiser developed into an enthusiasm without qualification by weariness or fear. Whatever Jenner asserted he swore to; whatever charge was brought against the New Inoculation he denied. He was ready for all comers with such voluble and hearty vigour that his outrages on propriety were laughed at and excused as “John Ring’s way.” Among his earlier services was the preparation of the Testimonial in favour of the New Inoculation which he carried from house to house and obtained the signature of nearly every London physician and surgeon of distinction. The Testimonial was published in the _Medical Review_ and _Medical Journal_ for July, 1800, and was reprinted in the newspapers. It ran as follows--
Many unfounded reports have been circulated, which have a tendency to prejudice the public against the Inoculation of the Cowpox: we, the undersigned physicians and surgeons, think it our duty to declare our opinion, that those persons who have had the Cowpox are perfectly secure from the future infection of the Smallpox, provided the infection has not been previously communicated.[119]
We also declare that the inoculated Cowpox is a much milder and safer disease than the inoculated Smallpox.
The first signatures comprised thirty-two physicians and forty surgeons, and the example being set, others hastened from town and country to record their adhesion. “I feel proud,” wrote Mr. Witham in sending his name, “that my little bark may, with others more illustrious,
Attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale.”
The Testimonial had great effect on the public mind: to the majority it was irresistible. As Ring said, “It confounded the enemies of the new practice”--adding in his characteristic vernacular, “and it secured the triumph of reason over the scruples of prejudice and ignorance, and the base manœuvres of sordid and self-interested men.”[120] Thus early was it discovered that an opponent of Vaccination was an ignoramus or a rascal. Ring’s easy arrogance is concisely illustrated in this deliverance--