In terms of documentation, the global history of immunization demonstrates some amazing creativity. Aside from the science and art of vaccine discovery and delivery, there were numerous people outside of scientific fields who enriched the history of immunization with their creativity. Paintings, literature, folk art, photographs, poetry, and many other forms of art have been used to record the history of vaccination in addition to scientific papers. For example, Thucydides, an Athenian historian and general, scientifically documented the Peloponnesian War (430 BC), and thus the scientific world learned about the Plague of Athens (430 BC), including the symptoms of the victims during the epidemic. Like Thucydides, noted English folklorists Lona and Peter Opie describe a metaphorical link between the famous rhyme “Ring a Ring o’ Rosie” and the Great Plague of England (1665).
When I was looking through the global immunization historical archives, I came across these images, which made me want to learn more about some interesting immunization stories. This sketch of a tombstone, which I found in the Wellcome Images archive, was given to them by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. But that was not my main concern. I discovered “An early vaccinator” written beside a sketch of a tombstone. I discovered a story worth telling after reading the inscription and digging deeper.
Smallpox ravaged humanity for centuries. Smallpox has been known since antiquity, and it is thought to have originated in India or Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Smallpox has been referred to by historians and physicians as the disease is known as the Indian plague, implying that it was once widespread in India. According to legend, in 1776, a British commander may have purposefully spread smallpox by sending recently variolated civilians into Continental Army encampments in Quebec, and thus smallpox became a weapon of war. John Adams is quoted in “The Life and Death of Smallpox” as saying, “The smallpox is ten times more terrible than the British, Canadians and Indians together. This was the cause of our precipitate retreat from Quebec.”
Variolae vaccinae is the source of the terms vaccine and vaccination (smallpox of the cow). And the term was coined to describe cowpox by none other than the English physician Dr. Edward Jenner. Dr. Jenner, who was named one of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Britons, is credited with developing the smallpox vaccine. And, as a result of his groundbreaking research, the devastating smallpox epidemics ended in 1979. However, the inscription on the tombstone sketch and the newspaper cutting tell a different story.
“Twenty years before Jenner: the tomb of Jesty – an early reputed vaccinator – in Worth Matravers Churchyard,” says the caption of the sketch of the tombstone. And according to the newspaper clipping:
“In light of the smallpox epidemic, the little churchyard of Worth Matravers, near Wareham, is now an interesting spot because it contains the remains of Benjamin Jesty, who was the first person known to experiment with cowpox inoculation, according to the inscription on his tombstone. It’s also worth noting that a man lives at Worth Matravers whose mother was vaccinated by Jesty. The inscription on Benjamin Jesty’s tombstone, which is clearly legible, reads: – “Sacred to the memory of Benjamin Jesty (of Downshay), who died on April 16, 1816, at the age of 79. He was born in Yetminster, in this country, and was an upright honest man, particularly noted for being the first Person (known) that introduced the cowpox by inoculation, and who made the experiment from the (cow) on his wife and two sons in the year 1774, from his great strength of mind. The tombstone to Jesty’s right is that of his wife. The inscription, on the other hand, has become somewhat weather-beaten and is difficult to read.”
Benjamin Jesty, an English farmer and cattle breeder, inoculated his wife and two sons with matter from a cowpox lesion on one of his cows in the spring of 1774, just two years after Dr. Jenner returned to Barkley as a trained doctor from St. George’s Hospital. Jesty was born in the village of Yetminster, North Dorset, England, in 1736. He went on to become a dairy farmer and a member of the Yetminster Vestry. He would have known the local doctors and apothecaries personally and would have been aware of the risks of variolation. Jesty was obviously aware of the local folklore that a cowpox attack protected against smallpox, and he was struck by the fact that two of his dairymaids, Anne Notley and Mary Reade, had previously contracted cowpox and had later nursed close relatives infected with smallpox without becoming infected themselves. Jesty had firsthand knowledge of cowpox as an occupational disease in his youth. And, having already contracted cowpox, he thought he was immune to smallpox. Jesty’s wife, Elizabeth, and their two sons, Robert and Benjamin, had not had smallpox and were therefore at risk. During a local outbreak of smallpox in 1774, Jesty used his “great strength of mind” to come up with the idea of inoculating his family with cowpox as a safer alternative to the traditional variolation method. It is worth noting that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced variolation to Britain in 1721 after witnessing it in Constantinople. To accomplish this, he moved his family from Upbury Farmhouse in Yetminster to Chetnole, a neighboring hamlet where he knew cows with cowpox symptoms were grazing in fields associated with a farmer named William Elford. Jesty used a stocking needle to insert material from lesions on his subjects’ teats into the skin of their arms. When Elizabeth’s arm became inflamed at the site of the vaccination, Jesty’s endeavor became apparent. Local doctors were summoned, and Jesty was required to explain what he had done. His wife and children were eventually saved. The local community, however, was outraged that he had purposefully introduced animal material into his wife and sons. Jesty was physically and verbally abused for his pioneering experiment, and the family was forced to relocate to Worth Matravers. Jesty repeated his sons’ vaccinations by inoculating them with smallpox, foreshadowing Jenner’s validation experiment several years later. Both boys were variolated by the local doctor in 1789; they were unaffected, implying that they were immune to smallpox.
Perhaps due to his hostile reception, Benjamin Jesty had no interest in systematically testing his methods or publishing his findings, so his discovery was largely forgotten. As Francis Galton once said,
In science, credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs.
Francis Galton
And rivalry, greed, and jealousy have a long history in science.
The House of Commons rewarded Dr. Jenner in June 1802 and again in 1807 for discovering and promoting vaccination. Before this first amount was given, Dr. George Pearson, a famous English doctor and founder of the rival Original Vaccine Pock Institution, had brought proof of Jesty’s work to the House of Commons. It was known that Dr. Pearosn was jealous of Jenner’s discovery, so he tried to take credit for it himself. Jesty’s well-documented case was harmed by his failure to petition in person. Reverend Dr. Andrew Bell, rector of Swanage, prepared a paper proposing Jesty as the first vaccinator on August 1, 1803, and sent copies to the Original Vaccine Pock Institute and George Rose, a member of parliament. After learning of Pearson’s involvement, Bell wrote to the Institution once more in 1804. Jesty testified before the institution’s medical officers in 1805, at Pearson’s request and at the institution’s invitation. Jesty’s oldest son, Robert (then 28 years old), also traveled to London and agreed to be inoculated with smallpox again to prove his immunity. After being cross-examined, Jesty was given a long testimonial, 15 guineas for his expenses, a pair of gold-mounted lancets, and a commission to paint his portrait in oils by the famous portrait artist Michael Sharp. Their examination’s verbal evidence was published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. On July 15, 1806, Bell preached the same sermon twice in honor of Jesty, “whose discovery of the efficacy of the cowpox against smallpox is so often forgotten by those who have heard of Dr. Jenner”.
Jesty was taken to portrait painter Michael William Sharp’s nearby Great Marlborough Street studio after being questioned. Jesty was an impatient sitter, so Mrs. Sharp played the piano to try to calm him down while Sharp painted. The Wellcome Trust now owns the portrait after a varied history.
Sources: Wellcome Images | Malta Medical Journal |History of Vaccine| Benjamin Jesty Website | Indian Journal of Medical Research | Wikipedia