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the new method of preventing small-pox, including Jenner's claim to the discovery of it, was instituted, and a grant was voted to him of 10,000l. In 1807 he received an additional vote of 20,000l., which, considering that he had been the instrument of saving in England alone at least 45,000 lives annually, will seem by no means an extravagant mark of national gratitude and respect.

In 1803 the Royal Jennerian Society, for the encouragement of vaccination, was established in London under the superintendence of Dr. Jenner. In 1808 this society was merged by his advice in the National Vaccine Establishment, which still continues to dispense the blessings of the antidote at the public charge.

The growing interest in the public mind in favour of vaccination was of course everywhere extended to its author, who, in spite of several unworthy cabals, and attempts to deprive him of the credit of a discovery peculiarly his own, was received among all ranks with the highest distinction at home, and also gratified with various continental honours. If he had thought fit to settle in London, he might undoubtedly have secured wealth in proportion to his reputation; but he preferred the quiet enjoyment of rural life and domestic happiness. His death took place at Berkeley, rom a sudden attack of apoplexy, in February, 1823, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. The latter years of his life were spent between Berkeley and Cheltenham, and in occasional visits to London, in the zealous prosecution of his favourite subjects of research, and successful endeavours to diffuse the blessings of his discovery more widely in his own and other lands.

In England, however, these have not been so extensively felt as in some other countries where the form of government has given facilities for the enforcement of vaccination. The small-pox consequently

prevails to a considerable extent in this country, and especially in London. Yet the annual number of deaths from small-pox within the bills of mortality is at present under 700; the largest number in one year since the general practice of vaccination having been 1299, in 1825. A century ago, when the population certainly did not reach half its present amount, the yearly average was 2000, the maximum being in 1796, when the mortality swelled to 3549. That this decrease is wholly due to vaccination cannot be doubted; the advantage, however, is partly indirect, and has arisen from the discontinuance of the practice of inoculating for the small-pox, which afforded security to individuals, but increased the general mortality by keeping alive a constant source of infection. But the most striking examples of the advantage derived from vaccination are to be found on the continent. Thus at Berlin, where the average annual amount of deaths from small-pox was 472 for the twenty years previous to 1802, and 1646 died in 1801, the mortality so speedily diminished after the enforcement of vaccination by law, that in 1821 and 1822 there was only one death in each year. These and similar instances which might be adduced from other countries, seem almost to warrant us in adopting the sanguine expectation of Jenner, that by means of his discovery this disgusting and dreadful malady, from which not four in a hundred of the human race wholly escaped, and which destroyed a tenth part of all that were born, and disfigured where it did not destroy, may yet be swept from the face of the earth.

The best books of reference on the subjects of this memoir are 'Baron's Life of Jenner,' 'Moore's History of the Cow-pox,' Dr. Gregory's admirable articles in the Encyclopædia of Medicine,' and the reports of various parliamentary committees, especially those of 1802 and 1833.

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THE Honourable Thomas Erskine was the third son of David Earl of Buchan, a Scottish peer of ancient family and title, but reduced fortune. He was born in January 1748, and received the rudiments of his education, partly at the High School of Edinburgh, partly at the University of St. Andrews. But the straightened circumstances of his family rendered it necessary for him to embrace some profession at an early age; and he accordingly entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764. Not thinking his prospects of advancement sufficiently favourable to render his continuance in that service expedient, he exchanged it in the year 1768 for that of the army. In 1770 he married his first wife, Frances, the daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow; and soon after went with his regiment to Minorca, where he remained three

years. Soon after returning to England he changed his profession again. It has been said that he took this step against his own judgment, and on the pressing entreaties of his mother, a woman of lofty and highly cultivated mind, the sister of Sir James Stewart, whose scientific writings, especially upon political philosophy, have rendered his name so famous, and the daughter of the well-known Scotch lawyer and Solicitor-General of the same name. But it is certain that at this time he had acquired considerable celebrity in the circles of London society; and it is hard to suppose that he was not sensible of his own brilliant qualifications for forensic success. Whatever the cause, he commenced his legal life in 1775, in which year he entered himself as a student of Lincoln's Inn, and also as a fellow commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge; not with a view to university honours or emoluments, but to obtain the honorary degree of M.A., to which he was entitled by his birth, and thereby to shorten the period of probation, previous to his being called to the bar. He gave an earnest, however, of his future eloquence, by gaining the first. declamation prize, annually bestowed in his college. The subject which he chose was the Revolution of 1688. His professional education was chiefly carried on in the chambers of Mr. Buller and Mr. Wood, both subsequently raised to the bench. In Trinity term, 1778, he was called to the bar.

Mr. Erskine's course was as rapid as it was brilliant. In the following term, Captain Baillie, Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, was prosecuted for an alleged libel on other officers of that establishment, contained in a pamphlet written to expose the abuses which existed there, and bearing heavily on the character of the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. It is believed that on this occasion Mr. Erskine made his first appear

ance in court. His speech was characterised by great warmth and eloquence, and a most fearless assertion of matters not likely to be palatable either to the Court or the Government. And this is the more worthy of notice, because it shows that the boldness which he afterwards displayed in causes more nearly connected with the liberties of England, was not the safe boldness of a man strong in professional reputation, and confident in his experience and past success, but the result of a fixed determination to perform, at all hazards, his whole duty to his client. The best testimony to the effect of this speech is to be found in the anecdote, that thirty briefs were presented to him by attorneys before he left the court.

We must hasten very briefly through the events of Mr. Erskine's life to make room for speaking at somewhat more length of a very few of his most remarkable performances. He rose at once into first-rate junior business in the Court of King's Bench, and received a patent of precedence in May 1783, having practised only for the short space of five years. He belonged to the Home Circuit in the early part of his professional life; but soon ceased to attend it, or any other, except on special retainers, of which it is said that he received more than any man in his time or since.

In his political life he was a firm adherent of Mr. Fox: but his success in Parliament, which he entered in 1783 as member for Portsmouth, was not commensurate with the expectations which had been raised upon the brilliant powers of oratory which he had displayed at the bar. On attaining his majority in 1783, the Prince of Wales appointed Mr. Erskine, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, to be his Attorney-General. This office he was called on to resign in 1792, in consequence of his refusing to abandon the defence of Paine, when he was prose

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