Letter from Dr. Thorriton on the Con -Pox. Sg 



the same number of days that the small-pox generally do, 

 there seemed to be a good deal of reason to conclude that 

 the diiease had proceeded from a quantity of the variolous 

 matter which had been introduced hito the blood by the 

 wound. 



" This patient, indeed, recovered by the help of medi- 

 cine, and a good constitution. This gentleman had had 

 both the small-pox and measles, in the natural wav, many 

 years before. 



"Several other cases have occurred in my practice, where 

 the constitution seemed to sutler from variolous matter in- 

 troduced into the blood, without creating what could pro- 

 perly he called the small-pox." 



Hence we learn, that even the producing the genuhie 

 small-pox from the cases in Fulwood's Rents, is no certain 

 criterion of these children having had the true, genuine 

 small-pox. And should my hypothesis be allowed, the 

 same might have occurred even after variolous inoculation. 



B.it, to bring over our adversaries, it may be prudent to 

 allow, that in this instance, and in a very few others, the 

 genuine small-pox has actually occurred after vaccination. 

 But such, it must be allowed, are rare events. Persons are 

 also said to have received the small-pox twice. Yet this is 

 held as no argument against inoculation. Such is, indeed, 

 accounted only a very extraordinary circumstance. When 

 I was lecturing at Guy's Hospital, happening to take with 

 me some ipecacuanha root, the attendant, only from carry- 

 ing this into the lecture-room, instantly perceived what was 

 in the paper, and was seized with the disagreeable effects of 

 shortness of breath and sense of suflbcation, — an idiosyn- 

 crasy, which I have seen from cheese, or t'le sight of a 

 cat : but upon the birth of a child, J should no more fear 

 its being convulsed with the effluvia of ipecacuanha, or 

 ready to faint from the smell of cheese, or become furious 

 at the sight of a cat, than I should fear its having the small~ 

 pox alter proper vaccination. The facts in the opposite scale 

 are so numerous, that such an event is next to a miracle ; 

 and if vaccination goes on as it has begun, and merits, 

 there would be no longer small-pox to make the experi- 

 ment ; and such an event actually happening, is only an 

 argument for the advocates of caw-pox to insist the more, 

 and urge on general vaccination. 



I have troubled you, sir, with these observations, hoping 

 that s\ich events as the above will not retard the great cause 

 of vaccination ^ for " as one swallow makes no sunuiier," 



so 



