Aristopia/Chapter 16
One of the most destructive scourges of mankind in the days of which we write, and of uncounted centuries before, was smallpox. Other plagues were more destructive for a time, but their duration was short, and the intervals between their appearances were long. Smallpox, however, was always lurking in some corner of every country, ready to take advantage of circumstances favorable for an epidemic. It has been estimated that half a million people perished annually of smallpox in Europe. The Spaniards carried it to Mexico and South America, where it committed the most frightful ravages among the Indians and the negro slaves. The English and French carried it to North America, where it exterminated whole tribes of Indians. It has ever been noticed that the disease is much more virulent and fatal among the dark races than among the light ones. America was only thinly populated with Indians when the European settlements were first planted. Of this thin population it is estimated that six millions perished of smallpox in a century.
One of the first cares of Ralph Morton was to exclude the scourge from his colony. His agents were continually warned against shipping persons suffering from, or suspected of being infected with, smallpox. When the disease became epidemic in any port of Europe Morton's vessels ceased to visit that port until the epidemic subsided. Vessels arriving at Mortonia with the pest on board were rigidly quarantined and all infected articles destroyed. The cleaner and more comfortable mode of living in Aristopia than that of the common people in Europe, where poverty among the masses was the mother of filth and squalor, was favorable to exemption from the scourge.
But still, smallpox was the terror of the world, and no hope of exemption appeared.
The second wife of Ralph Morton was the daughter of a Gloucestershire farmer and dairyman. From the time of her marriage she had observed her husband's anxiety about the smallpox and his unceasing efforts to exclude the scourge from the colony and mitigate its ravages when it gained an entrance. But it was many years before it occurred to her to tell her husband something of which she made little account, but which seemed to him of immense importance. She said it had long been known that the cows of Gloucestershire were subject to a pustular disease which could be, and sometimes was, communicated to the milkers who had chaps or abrasions of the skin upon their hands. It was believed by some that those persons who had suffered from the cowpox would not have the smallpox, or, if they did, that it would be in a very mild form. She told of a school-teacher who had inoculated several children with the cowpox; these children had escaped the smallpox, even when it attacked their families.
Ralph Morton had one of those fertile minds in which suggestions, falling sterile on other minds, like seeds sown upon the stones of the highway or among the bushes and brambles of the roadside, sprang up in a fruitful growth. He wondered much that if one person had observed that cowpox gave immunity from smallpox, all the world had not soon known and availed itself of the immunity. He did not make sufficient allowance for human dullness and prejudice.
He pondered the matter some time and then sent an agent to Gloucestershire to investigate. The agent reported that in fact he had found cows with the pustular disease, and by diligent inquiry learned of the existence of a tradition that the disease communicated to mankind gave immunity from smallpox.
Morton then ordered twenty young heifers to be shipped from Gloucestershire to Mortonia; two of them on leaving England were to be inoculated with the cowpox, and during the voyage two other heifers should be inoculated every ten days, so that the virus should be kept fresh. At Mortonia other heifers were to be inoculated, and thus a sufficient supply of virus would be provided.
Meanwhile the governor had published the matter and called for volunteers to be vaccinated. Several physicians and many other young men responded, having great confidence in the governor's wisdom and knowledge. The governor promised to confer a title of honor upon any vaccinated physician who would go into a smallpox hospital as doctor or nurse, and to give a pension of five hundred dollars a year to the family of any person who should, while so acting as nurse or physician, contract the smallpox and die of it.
There never have been lacking, in any civilized community, a few devoted persons willing to expose themselves to the dangers of plague in ministering to the sufferings of their fellowbeings, and that without hope of extraordinary reward. Still more were thus willing when special honors were to be reaped and provision was to he made for the future of their families. The smallpox was not just then in existence in Aristopia, but in some of the other colonies there were local epidemics, and thither went Aristopians, to try the efficacy of vaccination.
Every one of these persons became firmly convinced that vaccination furnished either entire immunity, or immunity from all except a very mild form of smallpox. Their testimony was published in newspapers, pamphlets, lectures, and by the teachers of public schools all over Aristopia. Many persons, including physicians, lent the governor their aid in urging general vaccination. When a smallpox epidemic at last broke out in Aristopia the efficacy of vaccination was so fully demonstrated that none but strongly prejudiced persons longer disbelieved.
The good news that here at last was protection from the world's terror, was published far and near. It might be supposed that all would gladly hail and quickly avail themselves of the protection. Not so. Mighty indeed is human prejudice, invincible when fortified with religious superstition. Nowhere in the civilized world outside of Aristopia was there sufficient freedom from bigotry to allow vaccination to be adopted, for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the acme of religious fanaticism in the world's history. The pulpit everywhere thundered against the impiety of vaccination. Smallpox was a wise dispensation of Providence to rid the poor man of the burden of his numerous family; it was a fitting punishment for the sins of the proud and impious; to attempt to escape from or abolish it was sacrilege. Passages of Scripture were searched out and pieced together to prove that vaccination was even anti-Christ. The miracle-mongers of the Church did not fail to find warning portents. Ox-faced boys and cow-faced girls were known (it was said) to be born of mothers who had been vaccinated. God's wrath was called down upon the impious who attempted thus to escape his scourge, a scourge intended in mercy, as they were too blind to see.
Thus, for a century after Aristopia enjoyed practical exemption from the scourge, Europe suffered on, until at last the fierce fever of bigotry so far subsided as to leave fair room for reason, when the whole civilized world (except a small prejudiced minority) availed itself of the boon, first made public by Ralph Morton.