LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 361 



ulation for smallpox was written from Adrianople in 1717 to her 

 friend Miss Sarah Chiswell. The passage relating to inoculation 

 is here given entire : " Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell 

 yon of a thing that I am sure will make you wish yourself here. 

 The smallpox, so general and so fatal among us, is entirely harm- 

 less here by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they 

 give it here. There is a set of old women who make it their 

 business to perform the operation in the month of September, 

 when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to 

 know if any of their family has a mind to have the smallpox. 

 They make parties for the purpose, and when they are met com- 

 monly fifteen or sixteen together the old woman comes with a 

 nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks 

 what vein you will please to have opened. She immediately rips 

 open the one that you offer to her with a large needle, which 

 gives you no more pain than a common scratch, and puts into the 

 vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle, and 

 after, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in 

 this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have com- 

 monly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the fore- 

 head and in each arm and on the breast, to make the sign of the 

 cross ; but this has a very ill effect, all the wounds leaving little 

 scars, and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who 

 choose to have them in the legs or in that part of the arm 

 that is concealed. The children or young patients play together 

 all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health till the eighth ; 

 then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two 

 days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or 

 thirty in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' time 

 are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded 

 there remain running sores during their distemper, which I doubt 

 not is a great relief of it. Every year thousands undergo this 

 operation, and the French ambassador says that they take the 

 smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take the \ ati rs in other 

 countries. There is no example of any one has died in it, and you 

 may well believe I am very well satisfied of the sai^'^ty of t^ e 

 experiment since I intend to try it on my dear little oon. I am 

 patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into 

 fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of the 

 doctors very particularly about it if I knew any of them that I 

 thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable part of 

 their revenue for the good of mankind. But that distemper is 

 too beneficial to them not to expose to all their resentment the 

 hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if 

 I live to return I shall have the courage to war with them. Upon 

 this occasion admire the heroism in the heart of your friend.'' 



TOL. XLV. 28 



