Chapter IV: Part 4

Hodges was the son of a vicar of Kensington, where he was born in 1629. He was a King's scholar at Westminster, and was educated both at Cambridge and Oxford, taking his M.D. degree at the latter university in 1659. When the great plague broke out he remained at his house in Walbrook, and gave advice to all who sought it. There was unfortunately no lack of patients. Hodges' writings give us a minute account of the "doctor in the time of pestilence." The first doubtful appearances of the plague were noticed by Dr. Hodges amongst some of those who sought his counsel at the Christmas of 1664-5, in May and June there were some that could not be mistaken, and in August and September he was overwhelmed with work. He was an early riser, and after taking a dose of anti-pestilential electuary, he attended to any private business that needed immediate decision, and then went to his consulting room, and for three hours received a succession of patients, some already ill of the plague, others only infected by fear. Having disposed of these anxious inquirers, the doctor breakfasted, and then began his round of visits to patients who were unable to see him at home. Disinfectants were burnt on hot coals as he entered their houses, and he also took a lozenge. Returning home, he dined off roast meat and pickles, prefaced and followed by sack and other wine. A second round of visits did not terminate until eight or nine in the evening. He was an enemy of tobacco, but his dislike of the Indian weed did not extend to sack, which he seems to have drunk plentifully, especially perhaps on the two occasions when he thought he had himself caught the plague. These proved to be false alarms. Amongst the drugs he tried and found useless were "unicorn's horn" and dried toads. The Corporation of London testified a due sense of Hodges' services by a stipend and the position of physician to the city. His "Loimologia" is an important contribution to the literature of epidemics.

Hodges, who had thus been a witness of the Carnival of Death in the metropolis of England, may well have pondered on the words of one of his illustrious contemporaries, Sir Thomas Browne, who says:--"I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to the world as to dote on life, or be convulst and tremble at the name of Death. Not that I am insensible of the dread and horrour thereof; or by raking into the bowels of the deceased, continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous reliques, like vespilloes or grave makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality: but that, marshalling all the horrors and contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well resolved Christian.... For a Pagan there may be some motive to be in love with life; but for a Christian to be amazed at Death, I see not how he can escape this dilemma, that he is too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life to come."

Mountebanks and Medicine.

BY THOMAS FROST.

Mountebanks--a name derived from the Italian words _monta in banco_, mounting a bench--were, in company with their attendant zanies, or "Merry Andrews," a popular class of public entertainers down to the earlier years of the present century. Their chief object, however, was not to provide a free entertainment, but to dispose of their nostrums to the crowds which the entertainment brought together. Andrew Borde, a medical practitioner at Winchester, who obtained a more than local reputation, enjoying the distinction of being one of the physicians of Henry VIII., is said to have been the original "Merry Andrew." The story of his life is full of interest, and furnishes some curious information concerning the manners of his age and his class. Mr. George Roberts, who supplied Lord Macaulay with much material for his "History of England," relates that Borde was a man of great learning, and had travelled on the continent. He made many astronomical calculations, which may not unfairly be supposed to have been for the purposes of astrology. He was a celibitarian and an ascetic, drinking water three times a week, wearing a hair-shirt next his skin, and keeping the sheet intended for his burial at the foot of his bed. As a mountebank, he frequented fairs, markets, and other places of public resort, and addressed those assembled in recommendation of his medicines. He was a fluent speaker, and the witticisms with which he interspersed his lectures never failed to attract, obtaining for him the name of "Merry Andrew."

Mountebanks flourished on the continent as well as in England, and the _Belphegor_ of the dramatist had many prototypes in Italy and France. Coryat, a little-known writer, who made the tour of Europe at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and published a narrative of his adventures and experiences, gives a good account of the mountebanks he saw at Venice. "Twice a day," he says, "that is, in the morning and afternoon, you may see five or six several stages erected for them.... These mountebanks at one end of their stage place their trunk, which is replenished with a world of new-fangled trumperies. After the whole rabble of them has gotten up to the stage,--whereof some wear vizards like fools in a play, some that are women are attired with habits according to that person they sustain,--the music begins; sometimes vocal, sometimes instrumental, sometimes both. While the music plays, the principal mountebank opens his trunk and sets abroad his wares. Then he maketh an oration to the audience of half-an-hour long, wherein he doth most hyperbolically extol the virtue of his drugs and confections--though many of them are very counterfeit and false. I often wondered at these natural orators, for they would tell their tales with such admirable volubility and plausible grace, _extempore_, and seasoned with that singular variety of elegant jests and witty conceits, that they did often strike great admiration into strangers.... He then delivereth his commodities by little and little, the jester still playing his part, and the musicians singing and playing upon their instruments. The principal things that they sell are oils, sovereign waters, amorous songs printed, apothecary drugs, and a commonweal of other trifles. The head mountebank, every time he delivereth out anything, maketh an extemporal speech, which he doth eftsoons intermingle with such savoury jests (but spiced now and then with singular scurrility), that they minister passing mirth and laughter to the whole company, which may perhaps consist of a thousand people." The entertainment extended over two hours, when, having sold as many of their wares as they could, their properties would be removed and the stage taken down.

Jonson, in his comedy of "Volpone," presents a scene showing a mountebank's stage at Venice, and the discourse of the vendor of quack medicines has a remarkable resemblance to the oratory of the "Cheap Jacks" of the present day, of which old play-goers may remember hearing a very good imitation in the drama of "The Flowers of the Forest." Says Jonson's mountebank: "You all know, honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns; but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six: six crowns is the price, and less in courtesy I know you cannot offer me. Take it or leave it, however, both it and I am at your service! Well! I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains: to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore, now mark: I asked you six crowns, and six crowns at other times you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one, nor half a ducat. Sixpence it will cost you (or six hundred pounds); expect no lower price, for I will not bate."

Returning to the mountebanks of our own country, we find in the accounts of the Chamberlain of the Corporation of Worcester for the year 1631 the following item:--

"They yeald account of money by them received of mountebanks to the
use of the poor 58s. 9d."

It is suggested by Mr. John Noake, however, that these mountebanks were riders or posturers, and that the amount was the charge made for the permission accorded them to perform in the city. Later in the century, the eccentric Earl of Rochester, on one occasion, played the mountebank on Tower Hill, and the example was followed by more than one comedian of the next century. Leveridge and Penkethman, actors well known at Bartholomew Fair for many years, appeared at country fairs as "Doctor Leverigo and his Jack-Pudding Pinkanello," as also did Haines as "Watho Van Claturbank, High German Doctor." The discourse of the latter was published as a broadside, headed with an engraving representing him addressing a crowd from a stage, with a bottle of medicine in his right hand. Beside him stands a Harlequin, and in the rear a man with a plumed hat blows a trumpet. A gouty patient occupies a high-backed arm-chair, and an array of boxes and bottles is seen at the back of the stage.

"Having studied Galen, Hypocrates, Albumazar, and Paracelsus," says the discourse thus headed, "I am now become the Esculapius of the age; having been educated at twelve universities, and travelled through fifty-two kingdoms, and been counsellor to the counsellors of several monarchs. By the earnest prayers and entreaties of several lords, earls, dukes, and honourable personages, I have been at last prevailed upon to oblige the world with this notice, that all persons, young or old, blind or lame, deaf and dumb, curable or incurable, may know where to repair for cure, in all cephalalgias, paralytic paroxysms, palpitations of the pericardium, empyemas, syncopes, and nasieties; arising either from a plethory or a cachochymy, vertiginous vapours, hydrocephalus dysenteries, odontalgic or podagrical inflammations, and the entire legion of lethiferous distempers.... This is Nature's palladium, health's magazine; it works seven manner of ways, as Nature requires, for it scorns to be confined to any particular mode of operation; so that it affecteth the cure either hypnotically, hydrotically, cathartically, poppismatically, pneumatically, or synedochically; it mundifies the hypogastrium, extinguishes all supernatural fermentations and ebullitions, and, in fine, annihilates all nosotrophical morbific ideas of the whole corporeal compages. A drachm of it is worth a bushel of March dust; for, if a man chance to have his brains beat out, or his head dropped off, two drops--I say two drops! gentlemen--seasonably applied, will recall the fleeting spirit, re-enthrone the deposed archeus, cement the discontinuity of the parts, and in six minutes restore the lifeless trunk to all its pristine functions, vital, natural, and animal; so that this, believe me, gentlemen, is the only sovereign remedy in the world. _Venienti occurite morbo._--Down with your dust. _Principiis obsta._--No cure no money. _Quaerendo pecunia primum._--Be not sick too late."

The mountebanking quack flourished in great state in the first half of the last century. "A Tour through England," published in 1723, gives the following account of one whom the author saw at Winchester:--"As I was sitting at the George Inn, I saw a coach with six bay horses, a calash and four, a chaise and four, enter the inn, in a yellow livery, turned up with red; four gentlemen on horseback, in blue, trimmed with silver: and as yellow is the colour given by the dukes in England, I went out to see what duke it was; but there was no coronet on the coach, only a plain coat-of-arms on each, with this motto: ARGENTO LABORAT FABER. Upon enquiry, I found this great equipage belonged to a mountebank, and that his name being Smith, the motto was a pun upon his name. The footmen in yellow were his tumblers and trumpeters, and those in blue his merry-andrew, his apothecary, and his spokesman. He was dressed in black velvet, and had in his coach a woman that danced on the ropes. He cures all diseases, and sells his packets for sixpence a-piece. He erected stages in all the market towns twenty miles round; and it is a prodigy how so wise a people as the English are gulled by such pickpockets. But his amusements on the stage are worth the sixpence, without the pills. In the morning he is dressed up in a fine brocade night-gown, for his chamber practice, when he gives advice, and gets large fees."

A passage in a letter written by the second Lord Lyttelton, about the year 1774, shows that this style of travelling was then still kept up by mountebanks. He says:--"As a family party of us were crossing the road on the side of Hagley Park, a chaise passed along, followed by a couple of attendants with French horns. Who can that be, said my father? Some itinerant mountebank, replied I, if one may judge from his musical followers. I really spoke with all the indifference of an innocent mind: nor did it occur to me that the Right Reverend Father in God, my uncle, had sometimes been pleased to travel with servants similarly accoutred." Nearly twenty years later, the famous quack, Katerfelto, travelled through Durham in a carriage, with a pair of horses, and attended by two negro servants in green liveries, with red collars. In the towns he visited these men were sent round to announce his lectures on electricity and the microscope, blowing trumpets, and distributing hand-bills.

There seems to be good ground for believing that among what may be called the amateur mountebanks, such as Rochester, we must count the author of "Tristram Shandy." Dr. Dibdin found in the possession of Mr. James Atkinson, a medical practitioner at York, a rather roughly executed picture, in oil colours, representing a mountebank and his zany on a stage, surrounded by a crowd. An inscription described the former as Mr. T. Brydges, and the latter as the Rev. Laurence Sterne. Mr. Atkinson, who was an octogenarian, told Dr. Dibdin that his father had been acquainted with Sterne, who was a good amateur draughtsman, and that he and Brydges each painted the other's portrait in the picture. The story is a strange one, but before it is dismissed as unworthy of belief, it must be remembered that the clerical story-writer was a droll and whimsical character, and at no time much influenced by his priestly vocation. It is quite conceivable, therefore, that he may have indulged in such a freak on some occasion during the period of his life in which he developed his worst moral deficiencies.

In the early years of the present century, a German quack, named Bossy, used to mount a stage on Tower Hill and Covent Garden Market alternately, in order, as he said, that both ends of London might profit by his experience and skill. It is said that on one of these occasions, when he had induced an old woman to mount his stage in the latter place, and relate the wonderful cures the doctor had performed upon her, a parrot that had learned some coarse language from the porters and costermongers frequenting the market, and sometimes used it in a manner that seemed very apt to the occasion, exclaimed, "Lying old ----!" when the old woman concluded her narrative. The roar of laughter with which this criticism was received by the rough audience disconcerted Bossy for a moment; but quickly recovering his presence of mind, he stepped forward, with his hand on his heart, and gravely replied, "It is no lie, you wicked bird!--it is all true as is de Gospel!" Bossy attained considerable reputation, and ended his days with a fair competence.

The mountebank has long fallen from his former high estate. The quack may still be found vending his pills in the open-air markets of Yorkshire and Lancashire; but he does not mount a stage, and resembles his predecessors of the last century only in the fluency and volubility of his discourse on the virtues of his potions, pills, and plasters. The author of the paper on mountebanks in the "Book of Days" (edited by Robert Chambers), states that he saw one at York about 1860, who "sold medicines on a stage in the old style, but without the Merry Andrew or the music," and adds that "he presented himself in shabby black clothes, with a dirty white neck-cloth." Even the name had long before that time ceased to be connected with the vending of medicines, and had come to be applied to those itinerant circus companies who gave gratuitous performances in the open air, making their gains by the sale of lottery tickets. The present writer remembers seeing the circus company of John Clarke performing on a piece of waste ground at Lower Norwood, when the clown of the show went among the spectators selling tickets at a shilling each, entitling the holder to participate in a drawing, the prizes in which were Britannia metal tea pots and milk ewers, papier mache tea trays, cotton gown pieces, etc. That must have been about 1835, or within a year or two of that time.

Only a few years later, a lottery in sixpenny shares was similarly conducted at Alfreton, in Derbyshire, and probably in many other places, though contrary to the provisions of the Lottery Act.

The mountebank doctor of former times, with his carriage, his zany, and his musicians, can now only be met with in the provincial towns of France and Italy, and even there but seldom. Thirty or forty years ago, there was a man who, in a carriage drawn up behind the Louvre, used to practise dentistry and advertise his father, who had a flourishing dentist's practice in one of the narrow streets near the cathedral of Notre Dame. Another of this fraternity was seen at Marseilles by an English tourist a few years later, and in this instance some musicians accompanied the mountebank's phaeton, and drowned the cries of the suffering patients with the crash of a march. But these survivals remind us rather of _Belphegor_, in the pathetic drama of that name, than of _Dulcamara_ in the opera of _L'Elisor d'Amore_, with his gorgeous equipage and his musical attendants, as old play-goers remember the personation of the character by the famous Lablache.

The Strange Story of the Fight with the Small-Pox.

BY THOMAS FROST.

When, at the present day, we hear of an epidemic of small-pox in some town where the practice of vaccine inoculation has been neglected, it is both instructive and consolatory to turn our thoughts back to the time, before the introduction of that practice, when that horrible disease caused ten per cent, of all the deaths in excess of those occurring in the ordinary course of nature. This statement, startling as it may seem to the present generation, may be verified by reference to the annual bills of mortality of the city of London. This fearful state of things had prevailed in England from the time of the Plantagenets, when, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, a gleam of light was flashed upon the medical darkness of western Europe from the east. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing from Adrianople to a lady friend in the spring of 1717, flashed that light in the concluding portion of her letter, as follows:--

"Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that will make
you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal and so general amongst
us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of _ingrafting_, which
is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it
their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of
September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another
to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they
make parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen
or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the
matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to
have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a
large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and
puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her
needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of
shell, and in this manner opens four or five veins.

... Every year thousands undergo this operation; and the French
ambassador says pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way
of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no
example of any one that has died in it; and you may believe I am well
satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it
on my own little son."

This intention she carried into practice, and on her return to England made great exertions to introduce inoculation into general use. The medical profession opposed it so strongly, however, that for many years the horrible distemper continued to rage unchecked. Such announcements as the following were, in consequence, not unfrequent in the newspapers:--

"WHEREAS the TOWN of BURY ST. EDMUND'S, where the GENERAL QUARTER
SESSIONS of the PEACE of that Division are usually held, is now
afflicted with the Small-Pox, for which reason it might be of
exceeding ill consequence to the Country in General to hold the
Sessions there; This is, therefore, to acquaint the PUBLIC that the
next GENERAL QUARTER SESSIONS of the Peace will be held at the sign of
the PICKEREL in IXWORTH, on Monday next.

"COCKSEDGE, Clerk of the Peace."

Later on in the same year (1744) an advertisement appeared, signed by the clergy, churchwardens, and medical practitioners of the town, stating that "there were only twenty-one persons then lying ill of the small-pox." Scarcely a week passed, in those days, without advertisements appearing of the number of cases of the disease in certain towns. Careful study of a large number of these announcements shows, however, that it was only thought desirable to advertise when the epidemic was thought to be abating, or when it had abated. Take the following, for instance:--

"Nov. 4, 1755.

"Upon the strictest Inquiry made of the present state of the SMALL-POX
in BECCLES, it appears to be in eleven houses, and no more, and that
the truth may be constantly known, the same will be weekly advertised
alternately in the Ipswich and Norwich papers by us,

"THO. PAGE, Rector.
"OSM. CLARKE and IS. BLOWERS, Churchwardens."

In the following year we find it announced that, "upon a strict inquiry made by the clerks through their respective parishes, delivered to us, and attested by them, there is but six persons now afflicted with the small-pox in this town,"--to wit, Colchester--and this statement is signed by three ministers and six medical practitioners. In the _Ipswich Journal_ of Jan. 22nd, 1757, the following appeared:--"There will be no fair this year at Bildestone on Ash Wednesday, as usual, by reason of the small-pox being in several parishes not far off."

The practice of inoculation, though still frowned upon by a large proportion of the medical profession, was growing at this time, as appears from the following advertisement:--

"COLCHESTER, May 12, 1762.

"The Practice of bringing people out of the country into this town to
be inoculated for the Small-pox being very prejudicial to the town in
many respects, but especially to the Trade thereof, and as by this
practice the distemper may be continued much longer in the town than
it otherwise would, in all probability, it is thought proper by some
of the principal inhabitants and traders in the town, that this public
notice should be given that they are determined to prosecute any
person or persons whomsoever, that shall hereafter bring into this
town, or who shall receive into their houses in the town as lodgers,
any person or persons for that purpose, with the utmost severity that
the law will permit.... But that they might not be thought
discouragers of a practice so salutary and beneficial to mankind, as
inoculation is found to be, which encourages great numbers to go into
the practice, the persons who have caused this public notice to be
given have no objection to surgeons carrying on the practice in houses
properly situated for the purpose."

The "great numbers" of persons referred to in this notice as having "gone into the practice" of inoculation for the small-pox appear to have been chiefly old women, as in Turkey, and by some of these it was carried on until the passing of the Vaccination Act in 1840. Five guineas was the fee advertised in the _Ipswich Journal_ in 1761 for performing the operation by Robert Sutton, an operator in Kent, who announced that he had "only met with but one accident out of the many hundreds he has had under his cure."

The prevalence of this hideous disease in the last century, and the dread which it inspired, is curiously attested by the frequency with which advertisements for servants, etc., appeared in the newspapers, in which there was an express stipulation that applicants must have had the small-pox. A housemaid or footman whose face bore the traces of this disease would not, at the present day, find their appearance much in their favour: but the following selection of advertisements, culled from the _Ipswich Journal_ and the _Salisbury and Winchester Journal_, show that in the last century the marks would increase their chances of obtaining employment very considerably. The dates range from 1755 to 1781, and such announcements might be increased to any extent.

"A Three Years' APPRENTICE is wanted to use the Sea between
Manningtree and London, whose age is between 18 and 25 years, and has
had the Small-pox. Such a one, inquiring of MR. WM. LEACH, at Mistley
Thorne, in Essex, will hear of good encouragement."

"WANTED, about Michaelmas, as Coachman, in a gentleman's family, who
can drive four horses, and ride postillion well. A Single Man, must
have had the Small-pox, and know how to drive in London. Such an one,
who can be well recommended, by giving a description of himself, his
age, and abilities, in a letter directed to A. B., at MR. J.
KENDALL'S, in COLCHESTER, may hear of a very good place."

"WANTED, a JOURNEYMAN BAKER, that is a good workman, and has had the
SMALL-POX. Such a person may hear of a good place by applying to MR.
JOHN STOW, at Sudbury, or to the Printer of this paper."

"Wanted an Apprentice to an eminent Surgeon in full practice in the
county of Suffolk. If he has not had the Small-Pox, it is expected he
will be inoculated for it, before he enters on business.--Enquire of
JOHN FOX, at Dedham, Essex."

"COLCHESTER, June 15th, 1762.

"Wanted immediately, a Stout Lad as an Apprentice to a Currier. If he
can write it will be the more agreeable. Inquire further of ELEANOR
ONYON. N.B.--If he has not had the Small-pox, he need not apply."

"WANTED for a gentleman that lives most part of the year in London, A
Genteel Person, between 28 and 40 years of age, that has had the
Small-pox, to be as Companion and Housekeeper. One that has been
brought up in a genteel, frugal and handsome manner, either a Maid or
Widow, so they have no incumbrances."

"WANTED, a NURSEMAID. None need apply who cannot bring a good
character from their last place; and has had the Small-pox."

"WANTS a place in a large or small family, in town or country, a YOUNG
MAN, who is well versed in the different branches of a Gardener, has
had the Small-pox, and can write a good hand."

"WANTED, in a large family, a STOUT WOMAN, about 30, single, or a
widow without children, who has had the Small-pox, to take care of a
lusty child, under a year old. Her character must be unexceptionable,
and by no means a fashionable dresser, and lived in families of
credit. Any person answering this description may enquire of MRS.
MERCER, at the Star and Garter, Andover, and be further informed."

It was about the time when the last of these advertisements appeared that Jenner commenced his inquiries concerning the prophylactic virtues of cow-pox, though nearly twenty years elapsed before they were sufficiently advanced to enable him to make the results known. His idea of using vaccine inoculation to bring about the total extinction of small pox was scouted by those of his professional brethren to whom he mentioned it, and we learn from one of his biographers that, at the outset, "both his own observation and that of other medical men of his acquaintance proved to him that what was commonly called cow-pox was not a certain preventive of small-pox. But he ascertained by assiduous inquiry and personal investigation that cows were liable to various kinds of eruption on their teats, all capable of being communicated to the hands of the milkers; and that such sores when so communicated were all called cow-pox." But when he had traced out the nature of these various diseases, and ascertained which of them possessed the protective virtue against small-pox, he was again foiled by learning that in some cases when what he now called the true cow-pox broke out among the cattle on a dairy farm, and had been communicated to the milkers, they subsequently had small-pox. These repeated failures perplexed him, but at the same time stimulated, instead of discouraging him. He conceived the idea that the virus of cow-pox might undergo some change which deprived it of its protective power, while still enabling it to communicate a disease to human beings. Following up the inquiry from this point, he at length discovered that the virus was capable of imparting protection against small-pox only in a certain condition of the pustule.

He was now prepared to submit his theory to the test of experiment, but it was not until 1796 that he had the opportunity. A dairymaid, who had contracted cow-pox from one of her employer's cows, afforded the matter, and Jenner introduced it into two incisions in the arms of a boy about eight years of age. The disease thus transferred ran its ordinary course without any ill effects, and the boy was afterwards inoculated with the virus of small pox, which produced no effect. The disappearance of the cow-pox from the dairies in the neighbourhood of his country practice in Gloucestershire prevented him from making further experiments; and when he visited London for that purpose, he had the mortification of finding that no one could be found who would consent to be operated upon. It was not until 1798 that this obstacle was overcome, and then, the results of the earlier experiments having been confirmed by a series of vaccinations, followed by inoculation for small-pox several months afterwards without effect, Jenner made his discovery public.

In the following year, vaccine inoculation began to spread, the practice being taken up by many of Jenner's friends, including several who were not in the medical profession. But, like inoculation for the small-pox, when introduced by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,--like all innovations on established practices, indeed,--vaccination received for many years after its introduction the most violent opposition. Just as inoculation for small-pox had been denounced from the pulpit and in medical treatises as a "diabolical operation" and a wicked interference with the designs of Providence, so did a certain Dr. Squirrel denounce vaccination as an attempt to change "the established laws of nature." The most absurd stories were circulated of the effects alleged to have followed vaccination. "A lady," it is stated by Mr. Bettany, "complained that since her daughter had been vaccinated she coughed like a cow, and had grown hairy all over her body; and in one country district it was stated that vaccination had been discontinued there, because those who had been inoculated in that manner bellowed like bulls." There were even doctors who pretended to detect resemblances to bovine visages in the countenances of children, produced, as they did not hesitate to declare, by vaccination! Self-interest may have had as much to do as prejudice in prompting the opposition of the profession. Many practitioners derived a considerable portion of their income from fees for inoculation for small-pox. Sutton, as we have seen, charged five guineas for the operation, and advertised himself in many provincial newspapers; and the income of Dr. Woodville, at one time physician to the Small-Pox Hospital, is said to have sunk in one year from a thousand pounds to a hundred on his adopting the practice of vaccination.

Notwithstanding the prejudice and interested antagonism to which the new practice was exposed, it continued to make way. The Rev. Dr. Booker, of Dudley, gave the following striking testimony to its beneficial effects:--"I have, previous to the knowledge of vaccine inoculation, frequently buried, day after day, several (and once as many as eight) victims of the small-pox. But since the parish has been blessed with this invaluable boon of Divine Providence (cow pox), introduced among us nearly four years ago, only two victims have fallen a prey to the above ravaging disorder (small pox). In the surrounding villages, like an insatiable Moloch, it has lately been devouring vast numbers, where obstinacy and prejudice have precluded the Jennerian protective blessing."

In 1803, the Royal Jennerian Institution was founded under royal patronage, and with Jenner as president, to promote vaccination in London and elsewhere; and its operations were continued for a few years with much success, ceasing, however, on the establishment of the National Vaccine Institution in 1808. Two years prior to this event, Lord Henry Petty, who then held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried a motion in the House of Commons, that the Royal College of Physicians should be requested to inquire and report on the progress of vaccination. The report, which appeared in the following year, set forth that, within eight years from the discovery of vaccination, some hundreds of thousands of persons had been vaccinated in the British Islands, and upwards of eight hundred thousand in our East Indian possessions, and that the practice had been generally adopted on the continent of Europe. Considering that small-pox destroyed one-sixth of those whom it attacked, and that nearly one-tenth, and in some years more than that proportion, of the entire mortality in London was caused by it, and also the number, respectability, and extensive experience of the advocates of vaccination, compared with the feeble and imperfect testimonies of its few opponents, the value of the practice seemed firmly established.

This report did much to advance vaccination in public opinion. At the next quarter sessions held at Stafford, it was taken into consideration by the county magistrates, who, from its statements and the reports and testimonials sent to Jenner, considered themselves justified in placing it on record--"That vaccine inoculation, properly conducted, appeared never to have failed as a certain preservative against small-pox; that it was unattended by fever, and perfectly free from danger; that it required neither confinement, loss of time, nor previous preparation; that it was not infectious, nor productive of other diseases; that it might be performed with safety on persons of every age and sex, and at all times and seasons of the year." It was not, however, until 1840 that the results of the labours of Jenner, the report of the Royal College of Physicians, and the opinions of nearly the entire medical profession received legislative endorsement by the passing of the Vaccination Act, since which small-pox has become a thing of the past, except in cases where it has been conserved by prejudice and ignorance.

Burkers and Body-Snatchers.

BY THOMAS FROST.

How recollections will crowd upon the mind when a train of thought is set in motion by the association of ideas! When, many years ago, I visited Dr. Kahn's anatomical museum, then located in Tichborne Street, I there saw a human skeleton which was affirmed by the lecturer, Dr. Sexton, to be that of John Bishop, who was hanged in 1831, for the murder of an Italian boy named Carlo Ferrari, at a house in Nova Scotia Gardens, one of the slums then existing in the north-eastern quarter of London. Though nearly forty years had elapsed since the commission of the crime, and I was only ten years of age when I heard the horrible story which the sight of that ghastly relic of mortality recalled to my mind, all the incidents connected with it immediately passed before my mental vision like a hideous phantasmagoria. The vividness with which they came back to me may be accounted for by the deep impression which they made upon my mind at the time of their occurrence. Those whose memories will carry them back sixty years will readily understand this.

At the time when the public mind was harrowed by the narration in the newspapers of the horrible circumstances connected with the murder, and for some time previously, a fearful excitement had been created in all parts of the country by stories of murders committed and graves robbed of their ghastly tenants for the purpose of supplying with "subjects" the dissecting tables of the London and Edinburgh schools of anatomy. In the latter city two miscreants named Burke and Hare had been convicted of murder for this purpose, and one of them hanged for their crimes; but the scare had not abated. Stories were told with appalling frequency of corpses missing from lonely graveyards and of narrow escapes from murder in little frequented places. Chloroform had not then been discovered, but the Scotch professors of the art of murder had introduced the practice, popularly named after one of them, of disabling their victims by means of a pitch plaster suddenly clapped on the mouth. Every person who was missing was thought to have been "burked," and the watching of graves to prevent the removal of newly-buried corpses became an established practice. As the dark nights of the late autumn came on, the fears of the timid and nervous were doubled, and persons who lived in lonely places, or in the ill-lighted parts of towns, became afraid to leave their houses after nightfall. I remember hearing such fears expressed by several persons at Croydon, with whom my parents were acquainted, and also of neighbours combining to assist in watching the graves of deceased members of each others' families.

A few years ago, I was one day exchanging reminiscences of a long bygone generation with a brother journalist, when, on this gruesome subject being mentioned, he placed in my hands a report of the trial of the murderers of Carlo Ferrari, which appeared to have been detached from a volume of criminal trials. No feature of the horrible record impressed me so much as the cool, business-like manner in which the wretches concerned in the crime hawked the corpse of their victim from one school of anatomy to another, and the equally cool and business-like manner in which the matter was dealt with by those with whom their nefarious occupation brought them in contact. The procuring of corpses for anatomical purposes was, in fact, a regular trade, and the biographer of Sir Astley Cooper states that "the Resurrection-men were occasionally employed on expeditions into the country to obtain possession of the bodies of those who had been subjected to some important operation, and of which a _post mortem_ examination was of the greatest interest to science. Scarcely any distance from London was considered an insuperable difficulty in the attaining of this object, and as certainly as the Resurrectionist undertook the task, so certain was he of completing it. This was usually an expensive undertaking, but still it did not restrain the most zealous in their profession from occasionally engaging these men in this employment." The price of a subject ranged from seven to twelve guineas, but when the "body-snatchers" were specially employed to procure some particular corpse, the incidental expenses were often as much more.

As an illustration of the times in which such horrors were possible, the story of the murder of Carlo Ferrari may, at this distance of time from the event, be worth telling. In the autumn of 1831, there lived in one of a row of small houses, known as Nova Scotia Gardens, in the poverty-stricken district of Bethnal Green, a man named John Bishop, with his wife and three children. He had formerly been a carrier at Highgate, but had long been suspected of "body-snatching," as the practice of robbing graves was termed, and had no visible means of honest living. He had the look of a man whose original rustic stolidity had been supercharged with cockney cunning. The house adjoining Bishop's was occupied by a man named Woodcock, who had succeeded in the tenancy a glass-blower named Thomas Williams, described as a little, simple-looking man, of mild and inoffensive demeanour. About two o'clock on the morning of the 4th of November, Woodcock was awakened by a noise, as of a scuffle, in Bishop's house, and afterwards heard two men leave it and return in a few minutes, when he recognised the voices as those of Bishop and Williams. At noon the same day these two men were in a neighbouring public-house, accompanied by two other men, one of whom was known as James May, who had formerly been a butcher, but for the last few years had been suspected of following the same ghastly and revolting occupation as Bishop. In the afternoon three men alighted from a cab at Nova Scotia Gardens, two of them being recognised as Bishop and Williams, and afterwards returned to the vehicle, when the former and the third man were carrying something in a sack, which they placed in the cab. The three men then entered, and it was driven off.

About seven o'clock the same evening, Bishop and May presented themselves at Guy's Hospital, carrying something in a sack, and asked the porter if a "subject" was wanted. Receiving a negative reply, they asked him to allow "it" to remain there until the next morning, to which he consented. Half-an-hour later, the two traffickers in human flesh called at Grainger's anatomical theatre, in Webb Street, Southwark, and told the curator they had "a very fresh male subject, about fourteen years of age." The offer being declined, they went away, and later on they were, accompanied by Williams, in a public-house, where May was seen by a waiter to pour water on a handkerchief containing human teeth, and then rub the teeth together, remarking that they were worth two pounds to him.

Next morning, May called upon a dentist named Mills, on Newington Causeway, and sold a dozen teeth to him for a guinea, observing that they were the teeth of a boy fourteen years of age. On examining them, Mills found that morsels of the gums and splinters of the jaw were adhering to them, as if much force had been used to wrench them out. Two hours later, Bishop and May called again at the anatomical theatre in Southwark, and repeated their offer of the preceding evening, which was again declined. Shortly afterwards, they went to Guy's Hospital, accompanied by Williams and a man named Shields, to remove the "subject" left there the evening before, and it was given to them in the sack, as they had left it, and placed in a large hamper, which Shields had brought for the purpose. There was a hole in the sack, through which the porter saw a small foot protruding, apparently that of a boy or a woman.

About midnight, the bell of King's College was rung, and the porter, on going to the gate, found there Bishop and May, whom he had seen there before, it seems, and on similar business. May asked him if anything was wanted, and receiving an indifferent answer, added that they had a male "subject," a boy about fourteen years of age. The porter inquired the price, and was told they wanted twelve guineas for it. He then said he would ask Mr. Partridge, the demonstrator in anatomy, and they followed him to a room adjoining the dissecting room. Nine guineas were offered, which May, with an oath, refused, and went outside. Bishop then said to the porter, "Never mind May, he is drunk; it shall come in for nine in half-an-hour." They then went away, returning at the stipulated time, accompanied by Williams and Shields, the latter carrying on his head the hamper containing the corpse brought from Guy's Hospital. It was taken into a room, where it was opened, and the corpse turned out of the sack by May. The porter, observing a cut on the left temple, and that the left arm was bent and the fingers clenched, conceived suspicions of foul play, and communicated them at once to Mr. Partridge. That gentleman thereupon examined the corpse, and mentioned its condition to the secretary, who immediately gave information to the police.

In order to detain the men until the arrival of the police, the demonstrator showed them a L50 note, observing that he must get it changed for gold before he could pay them. Several constables were soon on the spot, and the four men were arrested, and taken to the station-house in Vine Street, Covent Garden. On being charged on suspicion with having unlawful possession of a corpse, May said he had nothing to do with it, and had merely accompanied Bishop. A similar statement was made by Williams, and Bishop said he was only removing the corpse from St. Thomas's Hospital to King's College. Shields, who was known as a porter, said he was employed to carry the hamper, which he did in the exercise of his vocation. They were all then removed to the cells.

The evidence given at the coroner's inquest by Partridge and two other surgeons left no doubt that the unfortunate lad, respecting whose identity there was no evidence, had been killed by a violent blow on the back of the neck, which had affected the spinal cord. The four accused men were present in custody during the inquiry, and Bishop, after reading a bill relating to the murder, which was displayed on the wall of the room, was heard by a constable to say, in a subdued tone, to May, "It was the blood that sold us." Volunteering to give evidence, he said he got the corpse from a grave, but declined to name the place whence he had got it, alleging that the information would get into trouble two watchmen, who had large families. May also made a voluntary statement, to the effect that he got two "subjects" from the country, which he took first to Grainger's theatre of anatomy, and afterwards to Guy's Hospital, subsequently meeting Bishop, who promised him all he could get for a "subject" above nine guineas if he would sell it for him. The inquest was adjourned, and the police proceeded with their investigation.

The houses of Bishop and May had been promptly visited and searched by the police, who found at the former's a sack, a large hamper, and a brad-awl, the last showing recent bloodstains. At May's house in Dorset Street, New Kent Road, they found a pair of breeches, stained with blood at the back. On a second visit to Bishop's house the garden was dug over, and a jacket, trousers, and a shirt found in one spot, and in another a coat, trousers, a vest with blood on the collar and one shoulder, and a shirt with the front torn. When the brad-awl was produced at Bow Street police-court, May said, "That is the instrument I punched the teeth out with." Shields was eventually discharged from custody, but the other three prisoners were committed for trial on the capital charge.

The identity of the victim remained a mystery until the 19th of November, a fortnight after the murder, when the corpse was recognised by a foreigner named Brun as that of a boy named Carlo Ferrari, whom he had brought from Italy two years before, but had not seen since July, 1830. The boy picked up the means of living by exhibiting a tortoise and a pair of white mice in the streets. He had been seen by several persons in or near Nova Scotia Gardens on the 3rd of November, but he had not been seen since, nor had he returned on that day to his miserable lodgings in Charles Street, Drury Lane. The clothes found in Bishop's garden corresponded with the description given of those worn by him when he was last seen, and a little boy who played with Bishop's children stated that they had, on the following day, shown him two white mice in a cage similar to the one carried by Ferrari.

The incidents of the crime, as revealed from day to day, and the mystery in which the identity of the victim was for some time veiled, created so much excitement in the public mind, that when the prisoners were placed in the dock at the Old Bailey, early in December, the court was crowded, and a guinea each was paid for seats in the gallery, the occupants of which, all fashionably dressed, as might be expected of those who could afford to pay that price for the gratification of their love of the sensational, had taken their seats the day before. Though the evidence was but a recapitulation of the story told before in the police-court and the inquest-room, it was listened to with the utmost avidity. The witnesses for the defence were few, and their evidence valueless, except in the case of May, for whom an _alibi_ was established in respect of the time between the afternoon of the day preceding the murder and noon on the following day. The prisoners were sentenced to death, but in May's case the sentence was commuted into transportation for life. A sea-faring relative of mine, who was second officer of the vessel in which May was sent out to Sydney, described him as an athletic, wiry-looking man, with features expressive of sternness, and a determined will, quite a different-looking man, therefore, to his two companions in crime, who were duly hanged at Newgate.

The crime of these men, and the deeds of Burke and Hare, created such a scare, and exposed so vividly the temptation to murder afforded by the prices paid by surgeons for "subjects," that the attention of parliament was directed to the matter, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire and report as to the facilities which might be given for obtaining bodies for anatomical purposes in a legitimate manner.

Sir Astley Cooper, who was one of the eminent surgeons who gave evidence before this committee, was asked whether the state of the law prevented teachers of anatomy from obtaining the body of any person, which, in consequence of some peculiarity of structure, they might be desirous of procuring. He replied:--"The law does not prevent our obtaining the body of an individual if we think proper; for there is no person, let his situation in life be what it may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain.... The law only enhances the price, and does not prevent the exhumation. Nobody is secured by the law; it only adds to the price of the subject." The result of this inquiry was the passing of the Anatomy Act, by which the bodies of persons dying in hospitals and workhouses, if unclaimed by the relatives, may be placed at the disposal of the schools of anatomy.

Reminiscences of the Cholera.

BY THOMAS FROST.

It is now more than sixty years since the strange and mysterious visitation, as it was then considered, known as the cholera morbus, for which fearsome name that of Asiatic cholera has since been substituted, made its first appearance in this country, or anywhere west of the Ural Mountains. Coming first from India, from the banks of the Ganges and the Indus, the dread pestilence moved steadily westward and north-westward until, creeping along the rivers of Russia, and desolating all the most considerable towns of that country, it reached St. Petersburg. There it raged with fearful severity, mowing down as with the scythe of Death more than a thousand persons daily. So dreadful were the features of the unknown malady, and so rapidly were its victims carried off, that the ignorant populace of the capital attributed it to poison administered by the doctors. A fearful tumult was excited by this belief, and it was with great difficulty that it was suppressed.