On Faccinalian. 319 



remarkably mild, as if the small-pox bad been deprived, by 

 the previous vaccine disease, of all its usual malignity. 



The testimonies before the College of Fl,ysicians are very 

 decided in declaring, that vaccination does less mischief to 

 the constitution, and less frequently gives rise to other dis- 

 eases, than the small -pox, either natural or inoculated. 



The college feel themselves called upon to state this 

 strongly, because it has been objected to vaccination, that 

 it produces new, unheard-of, and monstrous diseases. Of 

 such assertions no proofs have been produced, and, after 

 diligent inquiry, the college believe them to have been 

 either the inventions of designing, or the mistal<es of igno- 

 rant, men. In these respects then, in its mildness, its safety, 

 and its consequences, the individual may look for the pecu- 

 liar advantages of vaccination. The benefits which flow from 

 it to society are infinitely more considerable; it spreads no 

 infection, and can be communicated only by inoculation. 

 It is from a consideration of the pernicious effects of the 

 small-pox, that the real value of vaccination is to be esti- 

 mated. The natural small-pox has been supposed to destroy 

 a sixth part of all whom it attacks ; and that even by inocu- 

 lation, where that has been general in parishes and towns, 

 about one in 300 has u,sually died. It is not nuifficiently 

 known, or not adverted to, that nearly one -tenth, some 

 years more than one-tenth, of the whole mortaHty in Lon- 

 don, is occasioned bv th • small- pox; and however benefi- 

 cial the inoculation of tlie small-pox may have been to in- 

 dividuals, it appears to have kept up a constant source of 

 contagion, wliich has been the means of increasing the 

 nuiuber of deaths by what is called the natural disease. It 

 cannot be doubted that this mischief has been extended by 

 the incon'^iderate manner in which great numbers of per- 

 sons, even since the introduction of vaccination, are still 

 every y-ar inoculated with the small-pox, and afterwards 

 required to attend two or three times a week at the places 

 ot inoculation, mrough every stage of their illness. 



From this, ihen, the public are to expect the great and 

 wncontrovert'ed superiority of vaccinatioji, that it conmiu- 



