Part 9

We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing his professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a young countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of small-pox being casually mentioned, she remarked she could not take the small-pox because she had had cow-pox; and he then learnt that it was a popular notion in that district, that milkers who had been infected with a peculiar eruption which sometimes occurred on the udder of the cow, were completely secure against the small-pox. The medical gentlemen of the district told Jenner that the security which it gave was not perfect; and Sir George Baker, the physician, treated it as a popular error. But Jenner thought otherwise; and although John Hunter and other eminent surgeons disregarded the subject, Jenner pursued it. He found at Berkeley that some persons, to whom it was impossible to give small-pox by inoculation, had had cow-pox; but that others who had had cow-pox yet received small-pox. This led to the doctor's discovery that the cow was subject to a certain eruption, which had the power of guarding from small-pox; and next, that it might be possible to propagate the cow-pox, and with it security from the small-pox, first from the cow to the human body, and thence from one person to another. Here, then, was an important discovery, that matter from the cow, intentionally inserted into the body, gave a slighter ailment than when received otherwise, and yet had the same effect of completely preventing small-pox. But of what advantage was it for mankind that the cows of Gloucestershire possessed a matter thus singularly powerful? How were persons living at a distance to derive benefit from this great discovery? Dr. Jenner, having inoculated several persons from a cow, took the matter from the human vesicles thus produced, and inoculated others, and others from them again; thus making it pass in succession through many individuals, and all with the same good effect in preventing small-pox.

An opportunity occurred of making a trial of the latter on May 14, 1796 (a day still commemorated by the annual festival at Berlin), when a boy, aged eight years, was vaccinated with matter from the hands of a milkmaid; the experiment succeeded, and he was inoculated for small-pox on July 1st following without the least effect. Dr. Jenner then extended his experiments, and in 1798 published his first memoir on the subject. He had originally intended to communicate his results to the Royal Society, but was admonished not to do so, lest it should injure the character which he had previously acquired among scientific persons by his paper on the natural history of the cuckoo. In the above work Dr. Jenner announces the security against small-pox afforded by the true cow-pox, and also traces the origin of that disease in the cow to a similar affection of the heel of the horse.

The method, however, met with much opposition, until, in the following year, thirty-three leading physicians and forty eminent surgeons of London signed an earnest expression of their confidence in the efficacy of the cow-pox. The royal family of England exerted themselves to encourage Jenner; the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of York, the king, the Prince of Wales, and the queen bestowed great attention upon Jenner. The incalculable utility of cow-pox was at last evinced; and observation and experience furnished evidence enough to satisfy the Baillies and Heberdens, the Monros and Gregorys of Britain, as well as the physicians of Europe, India, and America. The new practice now began to supersede the old plan pursued by the Small-pox Hospital, which had been founded for inoculation. The two systems were each pursued until 1808, when the hospital governors discontinued small-pox inoculation.

A committee of Parliament was now appointed to consider the claims of Jenner upon the gratitude of his country. It was clearly proved that he had converted into scientific demonstration a tradition of the peasantry. Two parliamentary grants, of L10,000 and L20,000, were voted to him. In 1808 the National Vaccine Establishment was formed by Government, and placed under his direction. Honors were profusely showered upon him by various foreign princes, as well as by the principal learned bodies of Europe.

Dr. Jenner passed the remainder of his years principally at Berkeley and at Cheltenham, continuing to the last, his inquiries on the great object of his life. He died at Berkeley, in February, 1823, at the green old age of seventy-four: his remains lie in the chancel of the parish church of Berkeley. A marble statue by Sievier has been erected to his memory in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral; and another statue of him has been placed in a public building at Cheltenham. Five medals have been struck in honor of Jenner: three by the German nation; one by the surgeons of the British navy; and the fifth by the London Medical Society.

Dr. Jenner was endowed with a rare quality of mind, which it may be both interesting and beneficial to sketch. A singular originality of thought was his leading characteristic. He appeared to have naturally inherited what in others is the result of protracted study. He seemed to think from originality of perception alone, and not from induction. He arrived by a glance at inferences which would have occupied the laborious conclusions of most men. In human and animal pathology, in comparative anatomy, and in geology, he perceived facts and formed theories instantaneously, and with a spirit of inventive penetration which distanced the slower approaches of more learned men. But if his powers of mind were singularly great, the qualities which accompanied them were still more felicitous. He possessed the most singular amenity of disposition with the highest feeling, the rarest simplicity united to the highest genius. In the great distinction and the superior society to which his discovery introduced him, the native cast of his character was unchanged. Among the great monarchs of Europe, who, when in Great Britain, solicited his acquaintance, he was the unaltered Dr. Jenner of his birthplace. In the other moral points of his character, affection, friendship, beneficence, and liberality were pre-eminent In religion, his belief was equally remote from laxity and fanaticism; and he observed to an intimate friend, not long before his death, that he wondered not that the people were ungrateful to him for his discovery, but he was surprised that they were ungrateful to God for the benefits of which he was the humble means.

ROBERT FULTON[8]

[Footnote 8: Copyright, 1864, by Selmar Hess.]

By OLIVER OPTIC

(1765-1815)

Very few inventors have achieved success in giving to the world new or improved methods of carrying on the business of life without long and hard study, repeated experiments and failures, and trying struggles with opposing elements. Many have labored through long years of poverty and obscurity to dazzle their fellow-beings in the end by the triumph of genius. The idea of an inventor has almost become coupled with that of anxiety, patient or impatient waiting, trials, and hardships. They are usually enthusiasts in the special pursuit to which they devote themselves, and the coldness and incredulity of those whose approval they seek to win, wear heavily upon them. The chilling common-sense of men more practical than themselves overwhelms them.

If the wonderful improvements of the present and the past age could be placed in comparison with the attempts, the struggles, to accomplish what has now been achieved, the list of failures would far outnumber that of successes. Many of those who have rendered priceless blessings to their own and after generations by the production of wonderful machines or methods from the fine fibre of their brains, were plundered and buffeted, even in the midst of their grand successes, to such a degree that it requires a lofty comprehension to determine whether their lives were triumphs or defeats. Sometimes the failure of one generation becomes the success of the next.

Born the same year that gave Robert Fulton to the world was Eli Whitney, who really made "cotton king," so that the great staple of the South yielded millions upon millions of dollars to the planters; but he might have died a beggar, so far as his marvellous invention affected his fortunes. Before he had fully completed his machine for separating the seeds from the cotton, which only two persons had been permitted to see, his workshop was broken open, and it was stolen. His idea was incorporated in other machines before he had obtained his patent, though it was only his own that transmuted cotton into gold. False reports, the repudiation of contracts for royalties fairly made, the refusal of Congress, through Southern influence, to renew his patent, constant litigation to protect his rights, harassed his life, and robbed him of the pecuniary results of his success. Defeated, he gave up the battle, devoted his attention to the manufacture of firearms, and finally made a fortune in this business. Fulton's experience was not very different.

On the other hand, important discoveries in methods and mechanical appliances have been made by accident, as it were, and fortunes accrued from very little labor or study; but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

It would be difficult to estimate the influence upon the prosperity of the United States of steam-navigation. It came but a few years after the organization of the Federal Government, when the greater portion of the territorial extent of the country was a wilderness, and preceded the general use of railroads by a quarter of a century. Transportation on the inland waters of the nation was slow, difficult, and expensive, and the introduction of the steamboat upon its great lakes and rivers, notably upon the latter, was a new era in its history. On the great streams of the West flatboats floated for weeks, laden with the productions of the States, on their way to a market, where days or hours are sufficient at the present time. Between the metropolis of the nation and the capital of New York, the sloops, which were the only means of communication by water, required an average of four days to make the trip of about one hundred and fifty miles, while to-day it is accomplished in half a day or less.

Now all the navigable rivers of the country are alive with steamboats, and the growth and development of the States have been mainly indebted to the introduction of steam navigation. On the great lakes, though more available for transportation by means of sailing vessels, the same powerful agency has achieved wonders, and all of them are now covered by lines of steamers, by which, either as tow-boats or independent vessels, a large proportion of the inland commerce of the nation is carried on. On the ocean the result of the introduction of steam-navigation is even more impressive, and nations separated by thousands of miles of rolling billows now join hands, as it were, with hearts commercially united, if not more intimately, through the medium of peace-giving commerce, of which thousands of gigantic steamers are the angel-messengers. On the Atlantic a score or more of them leave the one side for the other every week, and at the present time a merchant may breakfast in New York on Saturday, and dine in London the next Saturday.

It is now conceded, both in Europe and America, that the world is indebted to Robert Fulton for the practical application of steam to the purposes of navigation. Whatever has been claimed for or by others in regard to the priority of the invention or application of the mighty power of steam to the propulsion of vessels, Fulton was "the first to apply it with any degree of practical success," as an English work states it. As one who labored for years over the idea which came from his own brain, though it also came to others, who wellnigh sacrificed his own life in its improvement, and who achieved the crowning glory of its utility, he is certainly entitled to be regarded and honored as the Father of Steam-Navigation.

Robert Fulton was born in a small village near Lancaster, in the State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. He was the son of a poor man of Scotch-Irish descent, who died when his son was only three years old. He obtained only a common-school education, which he afterward increased by his own efforts. He early manifested a taste for, and considerable skill in, drawing and painting, and he selected this art as his profession, though he was more inclined to mechanical occupations, and spent his leisure hours in the shops of the workmen in his vicinity. He was somewhat precocious in his development, and at the age of seventeen he established himself as a portrait painter. He could hardly have attained to any high standard in art, though it appears that he had considerable success in his occupation, for at the age of twenty-one he had purchased a small farm in the western part of the State, where he placed his mother, indicating that he had a proper filial regard for the welfare of his remaining parent. It was evident from this success that he had decided talent and that it attracted the attention of others.

He was advised to visit England and place himself under the tuition of Benjamin West, the eminent American painter, who had achieved distinguished success in art. He followed this advice, was kindly received by the great artist, and remained as an inmate of his home for some years. In the palaces and mansions of the British nobility were treasured up many of the most noted pictures of the day and of the past. In order to see, study, and copy these, Fulton procured letters of introduction which gave him admission to these paintings. He resided for some time in the stately mansions of the Duke of Bridgewater and Earl Stanhope. Both of these peers were largely interested in making internal improvements in England, especially in promoting inland navigation by canals.

The duke was the possessor of immense wealth, and he had invested largely in companies connected with the canal system. Through him Fulton became interested in the same subject, and his mechanical tastes and talent drew him in that direction. The result was that he abandoned his easel and became a civil engineer, a profession hardly known by that name in the early part of this century. Earl Stanhope was also of a mechanical turn of mind, and had projected some important enterprises. At that time he was engaged upon a scheme which afterward filled up so much of the existence of Fulton--the application of steam to navigation.

The earl had devised a method of accomplishing the result, and had caused a small craft to be built which was to be propelled by a series of floats, by some compared to the paddles of a canoe, and by others to the feet of water-fowls. He described his plan to Fulton, who did not regard it as practicable, and stated plainly the reasons for his belief. The earl clung to his idea, highly as he appreciated the talents of the critic. The inventor resided at Birmingham about two years, and was employed in a subordinate capacity at his newly adopted profession for the greater portion of the time. In this city he made the acquaintance of Watt, who had developed the steam-engine from a mere pumping-machine to something near what it is at the present time.

Fulton's inventive genius was exercised during his residence at Birmingham, and he devised an improvement of the machine for sawing marble, from which he reaped both honor and profit. He produced a machine for spinning flax, and for the manufacture of ropes, and also one for excavating canals or river bottoms, for which purpose many such are now in use. As an author he wrote a work on canals, and published a treatise on the same subject in a London paper. He had a plan for the use of inclined planes in changing the level of the water for boats on canals, in place of locks, after the manner of the Chinese, claiming that greater elevations could be overcome in this manner; but it was never adopted.

In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where he resided seven years, as the terrors of the French Revolution were passing away. At this period he had invented what is now called a torpedo, largely used in modern warfare for the protection of harbors. He devised a submarine boat to operate these destructive weapons, which was not a success. He demonstrated what he claimed for the torpedo in the destruction of a brig of two hundred tons; but he failed to procure the adoption of this more modern engine of warfare by either France or England, and he had the honor to be snubbed by Napoleon I. In 1806 he returned to New York, where he labored for the recognition and introduction of the torpedo. He was encouraged by Jefferson and Madison, and Congress appropriated money for experiments; but the naval officers reported against him, and nothing came of his efforts.

In Paris he had made the acquaintance of Chancellor Livingston, then the American minister to France, who was interested in Fulton's work, and who soon entered into business relations with him in connection with it. He was a man of abundant fortune, while the inventor was comparatively poor; occupied an elevated social position, and was a person of great influence. He obtained a grant of the monopoly of steam-navigation from the State of New York. Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in producing the rotary motion of the paddle-wheels.

While in England Fulton had contracted with Watt for the building of such an engine as he desired, without stating the purpose for which it was to be used. This engine reached New York at about the same time as the inventor. He made his plans for the construction of the boat, which was to be of different form and proportions from ordinary vessels, and it was completed and fitted out with its engine during the year following his return. Not long before this event, when he found the sum of money Mr. Livingston had provided to complete the steamboat was nearly exhausted, Fulton attempted to sell an interest in his exclusive grant in order to raise funds to supply the deficiency; but so little faith existed in the success of his enterprise that he could find no one who had the courage to purchase it. But the vessel was finished, and a trial trip was made in her, to which gentlemen of science and general intelligence were invited, most of them, like the rest of the world, sceptics and unbelievers. A few minutes served to satisfy these men that the steamboat was a success, and that the problem of steam-navigation had been solved in its favor. It was the hour of Fulton's triumph.

The strange craft, to which the name of Clermont had been given, soon made a trip to Albany, accomplishing the distance in thirty-two hours, or one-third of the average time of the sloops, and making the return in thirty. Doubters and cavillers were silenced, and regular trips were made till the ice closed the river for the season. During the winter the Clermont was lengthened to one hundred and forty feet, improved in many respects, gaudily painted, and looked upon as a "floating palace." Another steamboat, called the Car of Neptune, was built, and soon a contract for five more was placed. The practical triumph had been achieved, and from that small beginning has come forth the mighty steam-marine of the present time.

Fulton was married to Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of the Chancellor, and was the father of four children. His business affairs were in anything but a prosperous condition. The State of New Jersey contested his monopoly, which proved to have been unconstitutionally granted. Fitch, or his successors, who had made some successes in the same line, endeavored to supplant him, and his patents were worthless. He was embarrassed by constant litigation, and his last years were full of trials and anxiety. He died February 24, 1815, at the age of fifty.

[Signature: William S. Adams.]

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

(1759-1833)

William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and unwearied philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind, was born August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner about 1776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his B.A. degree, he was returned for his native town at the general election of 1780. In 1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he continued to represent until the year 1812, during six successive Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the House of Lords without a division.