Sutton’s Thunder Stolen

Abstract

This chapter addresses how Daniel Sutton's success was never properly acknowledged by his rivals, who quietly went about the business of figuring out how he did it while sneering at his lowly origins. The eminent, fully qualified doctors who sought to discover Sutton's secrets rarely mentioned him or his family of inoculators by name. They were invariably referred to as 'a certain family', as if to identify them would be to bestow a dignity on them that they really did not deserve. After all, the Suttons probably had no idea themselves how they had more or less perfected the art of smallpox inoculation. There was no published theory nor any description. A London doctor, Thomas Ruston, concluded in his research that the chief ingredient was calomel. Calomel played an important part in Suttonian inoculation, administered in small doses, the quantity dependent on the age and perceived health of the patient.