Focus
Spotlight
February 14, 2000
New Countway Library Exhibit Highlights the History of Vaccination
In 2002, the last two remaining stocks of smallpox virus in existence are slated for destruction, and the beginning of the eradication in the United States of this ancient and deadly scourge—the only naturally occurring disease that humans have eliminated—is the subject of a new exhibit in the gallery adjoining the Rare Books and Special Collections department on the L-2 level of the Countway Library. To Slay the Devouring Monster: The Vaccination Experiments of Benjamin Waterhouse draws upon the rich assortment of materials preserved at the Countway to tell the first chapters of a story that is only now coming to an end.
Vaccine Inoculation : watercolor, circa 1801
This unusual illustration of a woman's arm with the distinctive mark of inoculation was inserted in Benjamin Waterhouse's own copy of The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation (London : printed by D. N. Shury, 1801). The Origin was Edward Jenner's attempt to prove his claim to the priority of cowpox inoculation. He concludes the treatise with the words "An hundred thousand persons, upon the smallest computation, have been inoculated in these realms. The numbers who have partaken of its benefits throughout Europe and other parts of the Globe are incalculable: and it now becomes too manifest to admit of controversy, that the annihilation of the Small Pox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice."
Gift of Louisa Lee Waterhouse to the Harvard College Library, 1858,
and deposited in the Harvard Medical Library.
Over two hundred years ago, English physician Edward Jenner (1749-1823) noted that dairymaids who contracted a mild disease known as cowpox through their contact with cows were resistant to smallpox infection. Jenner came to believe that cowpox matter, transmitted from one person to another, could confer immunity to smallpox. In the summer of 1796, using cowpox matter from the arm of a dairymaid, Jenner vaccinated—the word derives from vacca, the Latin word for cow—a young boy, James Phelps, who later demonstrated immunity to smallpox. Jenner received many accolades for his work, including an honorary doctorate from Harvard University, and devoted the rest of his life to the cause of vaccination.
Jenner's foremost proponent and disciple in this country was Cambridge physician Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846), one of the three members of the first Harvard Medical School faculty. Waterhouse received a copy of Jenner's publication on his vaccination research and was quick to see the value and possibilities of widespread inoculation with cowpox matter as a safe preventive against the ravages of smallpox—the disease he referred to as "the devouring monster." He published a short notice of Jenner's work, and the two physicians soon became correspondents and friends. Jenner sent to Waterhouse some specimens of thread impregnated with the vaccine matter, and so confident was Waterhouse of the safety and benefit of the procedure that on July 8, 1800, he used that matter to vaccinate his five-year-old son, Daniel, and a household servant, Samuel Carter. Vaccinations of three more Waterhouse children and another servant soon followed "to convince the faithless, and silence the mischievous." The children's immunity to smallpox was successfully tested later that summer, the Waterhouse experiments proving the validity of Jenner's work.
Snuffbox, circa 1802
This silver snuffbox was a gift from Edward Jenner to Benjamin Waterhouse and contained quills impregnated with cowpox vaccine matter for use in America. In a letter dated November 16, 1802, Waterhouse said, "Dr. Jenner has been to me what the sun is to the moon.... Dr. Jenner has just sent me a present I highly prize, a silver box inlaid with gold of exquisite taste and workmanship, bearing the inscription, 'Edward Jenner to Benjamin Waterhouse.' But Mr. [John] Ring annexed the superscription in rather a hyperbolic style, 'From the Jenner of the Old World to the Jenner of the New World.'"
Gift of Mrs. William Roscoe Thayer to the Harvard Medical School, 1933.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Waterhouse vaccination experiments, and the Countway's Rare Books and Special Collections department has mounted a display of unusual treasures—many gifts from members of the Waterhouse family—to document and celebrate this milestone in the history of American public health. Highlights of the exhibit include signed first editions of the Jenner and Waterhouse publications; Waterhouse manuscripts and letters; engravings, watercolors, and an oil portrait; the Waterhouse family Bible recording the vaccinations of the children in 1800; and some unusual artifacts—including a lock of Edward Jenner's hair and a china tea service commissioned by Benjamin Waterhouse to commemorate his efforts. To Slay the Devouring Monster: The Vaccination Experiments of Benjamin Waterhouse will be on display through the summer.
Hand of Sarah Nelmes (1798) by William Skelton (1763-1848)
This colored plate appears in the first edition of Edward Jenner's An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of Variolae Vaccinae and depicts the cowpox pustules on the hand of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes. Cowpox matter from these pustules was used to vaccinate the boy James Phipps in 1796.
For further information, contact Jack Eckert, Reference Librarian, 617-432-6207 or jack_eckert@hms.harvard.edu.