Dr. Ainslie on Small-Pox and Inoculation in Eastern Countries, 59 



has, in his mercy, bestowed on mankind no less tlian two powerful weapons 

 with which to combat it : these are Inoculation and Vaccination. How 

 the small-pox could at first have originated sets all conjecture at defiance ; 

 and it must be difficult to account for this singularity regarding it, that 

 although nothing but variolous matter, under some modification or other, 

 has the effect of generating the disease,* yet it seems to be more prevalent at 

 some seasons than at others ; as if its appearance was consequent on a pecu- 

 liar state of the air ; an idea which has been held very cheap by the author 

 just cited, as well as by others. f 



Many physicians of note believe that the small-pox contagion is limited 

 to a very narrow circle, and that it is rarely conveyed by the wind to a dis- 

 tance ; and we know that Dr. Haygarth in his " sketch of a plan to exter- 

 minate this malady from Great Britain," tells us that certain facts appear to 

 exhibit negative proofs, that open air is not contaminated by it to a greater 

 distance from the patient than one thousand five hundred feet, and pro- 

 bably not to one hundredth pait of that space : how then did it happen, it 

 may be asked, that for years together in India, previous to the practice of 

 vaccination, the malady was not heard of in some districts ; then, without a 

 possibility of its being traced to any evident cause, did it come like a pes- 

 tilence, spreading with rapid strides, and sparing neither sex nor age nor 

 condition ? So mucJi was the calamity dreaded, that religious ceremonies 

 were, and I presume still are, performed annually in every village to depre- 

 cate the scourge ; humble supplications were made by people of all ranks 

 at the shrine of the small-pox goddess ; and prayers offered up, calling on 

 her to take under her care such as might be suffering from, or had not yet 

 been visited by, the terrible affliction. 



The mild disorder variola discreta is called in Tamul Peri ammay, in 

 Telinga, Pedamma ; in Pali, Kruivan ; in Sanscrit Masiirikd ; and in 

 Dukhanie, Bar'i-s'itld ; it may be found treated of in various Tamul sastras, 

 common in Lower India ; but more especially in that named Vaittiya 

 Vagliadam Airit Anyuru, a medical work by Agastya. The same com- 

 plaint is termed by the modern Arabians, Ableh <djl also Aljuderi ; and by 

 the Malays, Cachar j\^\i ; a well written treatise on it in Arabic is entitled 

 A,.r^ \^ ,^jsA\ i_)'c^, and was composed by Abu Jdfar A/imed bin MuJumimed. 

 In a Sanscrit book common in Ceylon and written in the Singalese cha- 



• See Woodville's History of the Sraall-pox, p. 3. f See Dr. Wilson on febrile diseases. 



I 2 



