showed that excellent results could be got from arm-to-arm
vaccination. As this latter method is a very convenient one,
the technique was widely adopted. We have to remember that we
are speaking of a period about sixty years before Lister gave
to suffering humanity that other great gift, antisepsis: and so
many arms "went wrong," not because of being vaccinated, but
because the scratches were afterwards infected by the
microorganisms of dirt. Jenner knew well the difference between
the reaction of clean vaccination and that of an infected arm,
but a great many medical men of his time did not, and so he was
constantly plagued with reports of vaccinations "going wrong"
when it was septic infection of uncleansed skin that had
occurred. The explanation of these things by letter consumed a
very great deal of his valuable time. By the end of 1799 a
large number of persons had, however, been successfully
vaccinated. As one Pearson proved troublesome by starting an
institution for public vaccination on principles which Jenner
knew to be wrong, and as Jenner found himself virtually
supplanted and misrepresented, he came up to London in 1800 to
vindicate his position. The King, the Queen and the Prince of
Wales, to whom he was presented, materially helped on the cause
by countenancing the practice of vaccination. Lord Berkeley,
his Lord of the Manor, was in this as in all things a kind and
wise patron. In the United States of America vaccination made
rapid progress, having been introduced there under the good
auspices of Dr. Waterhouse, professor of medicine at Cambridge,
Mass. The discovery was announced with true American
informality as "Something curious in the medical line," on
March 12, 1799.