“AND FAMILY DISPENSATORY. 135 
is good, and put upon a courfe of affes milk, with fuch other treatment as hath 
already been directed in confumptions. , 
OF -INOCULATITION. 
~ THIS falutary invention, which is the only effectual means of ftopping the ravages 
of this difeafe, has been known in Europe above half a century; yet, like molt 
other ufeful difcoveries, it has, till of late, made but flow progrefs. No difcovery 
can be of general utility, while the practice of it is kept in the hands of afew. The 
fears, the jealoufies, the prejudices, and the oppofite interefts, of the faculty, are, 
and ever will be, the moft effectual obftacles to the progrefs of any falutary difco- 
very. “Hence it is that the praétice of inoculation never became, in any meafure, 
general, even in England, till taken up by men not bred to phyfic. Thefe have 
not only rendered the practice more extenfive, but likewife more fafe, and, by acting 
under lefs reftraint than the regular practitioners, have taught them that the patient’s 
Sreateft danger arofe, not from the want of medical care, but from the exce/s of it, 
The prefent method of inoculating in Britain, is to make two or three flanting inci- 
fions in the arm, fo fuperficial as not to pierce quite through the fkin, with a lancet _ 
wet with frefh matter taken from a ripe puftule; afterwards the wounds are clofed 
up, and left without any drefling, Some make ufé of a lancet covered with the dry 
matter; but this is lefs certain, and ought never to be ufed unlefs where frefh mat- 
ter cannot be obtained: when this is the cafe, the matter ought to be moiftened 
by holding the lancet for fome time in the fteam of warm water. We do not find. 
that inoculation is at all confidered as a medical operation in foreign countries. In: 
Turkey, whence we learned it, it is performed by the women, and in the Eaft Indies: 
by the ‘brachmins or priefts. In this country, the cuftom, though ftill in its in- 
fancy, ‘has been praétifed by numbers of the common people with aftonifhing fuc- 
cefs and; as the fmal]-pox is now become an epidemical difeafe in moft parts of 
the known world, there feems no other choice left, but to render the malady as mild 
as poflible. It is a matter of finall confequence, whether a diftate be entirely 
extirpated, or rendered {0 mild as neither to deltroy life nor hure the conftitution 5 
and that this may be done by inoculation, does not now admit of adoubt. The 
numbers who die under inoculation hardly deferve to. be named. In the natural 
way, one in four or five generally dies; but by inoculation not one of a thoufand, N ay, 
fome can boatt of having inoculated ten thoufand without the lofs of a fingle patient. 
Phe moft proper age for inoculating children is betwixt three and five. Thole 
who have conftitutional difeafes may neverthelefs be inoculated; it will often: 
mend the habit of body; but ought to be performed at a time when they are moit 
healthy. “Accidental difeafes thould always be removed before inoculation. It is: 
ai m general ly. 
