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£10,000, afterwards increased to £30,000. An incident,
at the time of little importance in itself, illustrates the
esteem in which Jenner was held. Napoleon the First
had detained as prisoners a number of Englishmen,
and Jenner had Written, praying for their release. Buona
parte read the letter, and, with others of its kind, was about
to consign it to the waste paper basket, when, observing
Jenner's signature at the foot, he turned to his minister,
saying, "I cannot refuse anything to one bearing that name,
we must let the prisoners go."
An account of these incidents in the history of the early
times of vaccination is introduced for no other purpose
than to show the position of esteem and regard in which the
name of Jenner was held. And surely the people of his time,
acquainted with the conditions existing both before and after
the introduction of vaccination, had opportunities now beyond
our reach of forming a judgment upon the value of
vaccination.
That they held in high estimation the services rendered
to humanity by Edward Jenner is sufficiently patent from
the record of the honours showered upon him by the grateful
inhabitants of every civilized country. The evidence of
those in a position to judge from personal observation the
immediate advantages following the introduction of vaccination,
must count for something in the scale when weighing
the merits and demerits of that operation. But fortunately
we are in possession of papers which hand down to us definite
facts endorsing that evidence. To the bills of mortality
reference has already been made. These documents were
written for parochial purposes; their authority is removed
from any suspicion of bias. In characters sometimes almost
obliterated by age, and in monotonous detail, they bear
record to a yearly recurring mortality largely exceeding
f 2