Pierce Dod FRS, FRCP (1683–1754) was a British physician and opponent of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

inoculation. He graduated from

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in 1701, received his MA in 1705, MD in 1714 and was elected a fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...

in 1720. He was made a physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital from 1725 until his death, and he joined the

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in 1730.RS list of Fellows
/ref> His entry into the smallpox controversy occurred in 1746. He wrote ''Several cases in physick, and one in particular, giving an account of a person who was inoculated for the small-pox. . . and yet had it again.'' The pamphlet discussed nine cases that were to prove that inoculation was not effective. However, only one of the clinical cases was actually an indictment of the smallpox inoculation practice, and that was a child who was inoculated at the age of three and then developed smallpox at five. This work was countered by doctors J. Kirkpatrick, W. Barrowby, and I. Schomberg in ''A letter to the real and genuine Pierce Dod, MD, exposing the low absurdity of a late spurious pamphlet falsely ascrib'd to that learned physician: with a full answer to the mistaken case of a natural small-pox, after taking it by inoculation, by Dod Pierce, MS.'' The answering pamphlet was entirely satirical—pretending that the original must have been a piracy, since the real Pierce Dod would never have made such a mistake as to write about a case that he had not personally witnessed and would have understood that some persons get smallpox twice. (Dod had had the case of second infection reported in a letter to him.) They argued that only someone afraid of losing money from his clinical practice would oppose inoculations that prevented disease. The satire caused Dod a great deal of professional damage, both to his reputation and his practice. He died on 6 August 1754.

References

* Goodwin, Gordon, and Andrea Rusnock. "Pierce Dod". In Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. ''

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.'' vol. 16, 385–386. London: Oxford University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dod, Pierce 18th-century English medical doctors Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford 1683 births 1754 deaths