248 Cojiti filial ion of the Comparison of the 



liable to such convulsive attacks, which often prove fatal, 

 would naturally put the practitioner on his guard against 

 bringing on, or addnig to, an event equally terrific, as it is 

 often fatal. 



"■ It cannot be denied," says my learned and eloquent 

 friend Dr. Alacdonaid, " but the inoculation of the small- 

 pox has proved to mankind a ready means to alleviate and 

 escape the danger of a most distressing disorder : still, not- 

 wiihstandiug these happy efl'ects, the inoculated small-pox 

 is ry/t'/j accompanied with symptoms which give just cause 

 of alarm, sml sometimes prove fatal under the most jvidi- 

 cious management. 



'• Were fto record all the distressing scenes which fre- 

 quently attend the inoculated small-pox, or relate the sad 

 histories of those unfortunate families, who, in consequence 

 of inoculation, have felt the ragings of this dire disorder, 

 the stoutest heart would shrink with horror, and drop a 

 tear of pity over the sulierings of humanity. 



" I would wish to relinquish tliis subject; for my pen 

 can give but a faint sketch of those pictures of singular 

 distress, w h.ch every physician of even moderate experience 

 lias witnessed . 



4thly,' Old age. 

 Although this period cannot be alleged as equally un- 

 favourable to either of the foregoing, it is one a practitioner 

 would not prefer, and it seems cruel to subject a person oti. 

 the verge of the grave to the chance of a disease that pos- 

 sibly may prove extremely severe. 



5thly, Pregnane!/ is a sii nation in which inoculation gene- 

 rally produced abortion, and the death ofthe'individuuL 



Cases of this sort arc to be found in every author. In 

 Mead we have the following aiTecting narrative : 



" A lady of qualitv at tlie seventh month of her preg- 

 nancy was seized with the natural small-poN, which proved 

 of an unfavourable iort. On the eleventh day she was 

 brought to bed, and safely delivered of a male child : on 

 the fourteenth she died. On the fourth day following, the 

 infant was seized with convulsions, the forerunner of the 

 eruption, which appeared on that same day, and he died in 

 the evening." 



The inoculated disease is found also equally dangerous. 



'* A phvsician at Winchester intorms me," says Dr. 

 Kirkpatrick in his Analysis of Inoculation, " that in the 



severaJ 



