Newfoundland Doctor Began Smallpox Vaccinations
Reverend Dr. John Clinch Vaccinated Against Virus in 1800
Spread like wildfire through a tinder-dry forest, the infectious disease of smallpox passed easily from person to person, leaving a swath of illness and death in its wake. Brought to North America by European settlers and explorers, smallpox was responsible for decimating the native populations across Canada – they had no immunity to protect them. The Europeans themselves were not immune to the infection that caused fever and a rash of small pustules on limbs and face, and had complications of “pneumonia, blindness, infection of joints or bones,” according to Canadian Encyclopedia. One minor form of smallpox had a death rate of 1 - 2 percent, the death rate of the more severe form was a disastrous 30 to 40 percent.
Dr. John Clinch Vaccinated Family First
Working on the smallpox dilemma in England, Dr. Edward Jenner began vaccinations in 1798. He wrote letters about his methods of hindering the contagious disease to his colleague and friend in Canada, Dr. John Clinch. Taking up the mission in the colony, Clinch began giving innoculations, starting with his teenage nephew, Joseph Hart, and then the rest of his large family.
Seven Hundred Vaccinated by Mid-1800
With successful prevention of smallpox in his innoculated patients, the doctor went on to vaccinate at least 700 people in Trinity, St. John's and Portugal Cove by mid-1800, said the Canadian Medical Association Journalin December 1999. Some were mildly ill from the vaccinations, others not at all, and most built up an immunity against smallpox. The vaccinations in Newfoundland were the first in Canada; Benjamin Waterhouse in Massachusetts was beginning the vaccination process in Boston at about the same time. The records are not clear on which man was first.
Cowpox Virus
Dr. Clinch's vaccine was received by ship sailing to Newfoundland, perhaps “stored and transported on narrow pointed slivers of ivory about 3 cm long, called 'points,' or on squares of glass with a thin coat of gum arabic mucilage,” said CMAJ. The early vaccines were composed of cowpox virus. Cowpox was a disease of cows' udders, less virulent in humans, and seemed to provide immunity against the vicious smallpox. Eight days after receiving vaccination, lymph was donated from the original receiver to other people in arm-to-arm transfer, enabling a large number of innoculations in an on-going effort to slow the virus.
Clinch a Doctor and Clergyman
A versatile man, Dr. John Clinch was also the Reverend John Clinch, a clergyman with the Church of England. Moving from Cirencester, England to Bonavista in the British colony on the east coast of Canada in 1775 in his late 20s, he became “a salaried judge of the surrogate court of Newfoundland, and at other times he acted as a magistrate, surveyor, and collector of customs,” according to Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Marrying Hannah Hart in English Harbour, Newfoundland in 1784, the Clinch family grew to eight children, one daughter and seven sons. He became the Trinity Bay missionary in 1787.
The smallpox vaccinations instituted by Dr. Clinch were a success, sparing much misery and many lives of settlers and natives. Though the aggressive virus still raged on across the country - as one example, in 1885 smallpox caused the deaths of at least 3,000 people in Montreal - gradually it was overcome and by the 1940s was eliminated. Smallpox is now a rare occurence in Canada.
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