How wonderful that this horrid pestilence should at this time even have an existence in our island . . . A Physician from Copenhagen call'd on me today, and express'd his astonishment at an opposition to vaccine Inoculation, as by that means only the smallpox was completely extinguish'd in that City.
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"It is not, that I am an enemy to the practice of inoculation; on the contrary, I am a warm friend to it, and have been so for many years. But I am convinced, that the present mode of conducting it is …"
"The opposition I have met with has only served to confirm me in my opinion."
"You see by the papers how I'm annoyed by a set of blockheads who write about the imperfection of the cowpox, as a vaccine, without any knowledge scarcely of its phenomena."
"The joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities was so excessive that I sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie…"
"I have often been struck with the wonderful harmony that prevails throughout the works of nature."
In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Joyce, expressing frustration and disbelief at the continued opposition to vaccination in England.
Date: 1806
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Jenner expresses astonishment that smallpox still ravages England when a proven vaccine exists. A visiting physician from Copenhagen reinforces his dismay: that city had completely eradicated smallpox through vaccination alone, yet England tolerated fierce opposition to inoculation. The quote captures Jenner's bewilderment that people resist a demonstrably effective intervention while a neighboring nation had already achieved what Jenner spent his life working toward.
Jenner pioneered the smallpox vaccine in 1796, demonstrating cowpox inoculation conferred immunity. He then battled decades of public skepticism and organized anti-vaccination movements despite overwhelming evidence. This quote reveals his characteristic frustration mixed with vindication — a foreign physician's testimony from Copenhagen validated everything Jenner argued. His lifelong campaign for universal vaccination made Copenhagen's success intensely personal: proof his discovery could end one of history's deadliest diseases.
In the early 19th century, smallpox killed roughly 400,000 Europeans annually, scarring and blinding countless survivors. Jenner published his vaccine findings in 1798, but resistance was fierce — religious objectors claimed inoculation defied God, others feared contamination from animal material. While forward-thinking cities like Copenhagen mandated vaccination and eliminated the disease, Britain remained divided. The tension between proven science and public resistance Jenner witnessed foreshadowed every major public health battle that followed.
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