 Inoculation , an early form of immunization , was introduced into England during the reign of George I , who had put a definite end to the royal touch in his kingdom . The royal family strongly supported it , but it was controversial medically as well as politically and theologically . The medicine historian Adrian Wilson described it as " the Whig and Hanoverian equivalent of the Stuart practice of touching for scrofula ... But whereas the Royal Touch mobilised divine powers , based on hereditary right , inoculation deployed natural powers harnessed by man , with the monarch as the benevolent onlooker rather than indispensable participant . " 
