314 On the Eruptions which fometimes appear 
feéted by it cafually. To juftify what is advanced, it is in- 
cumbent on the Affertors either to prove that fuch errors have 
been committed, or at leaft they ought to be able to oppofe 
equally extenfive experience to that of the adverfe party: for no 
found reafoner will confider opinions, which are only founded 
in conjecture, to be demonftrated truths. I will not, how- 
ever, take upon myfelf the unrequired tafk of attempting to 
vindicate others from the above charges; but I fhall only 
perform a duty in ftating the refult of my own experience 
with regard to the point in queftion; conceiving that by this 
means the truth may be brought to light, if aided by the evi- 
dence from experience of future inquirers. 
In the courfe of my pra¢tice the latter end of February, 
and in March following, I diftinétly recolle& four cafes 
in which I firft faw eruptions from the vaccine inoculation 
refembling fo much thofe of the fmall-pox, that I fhould not 
have hefitated to confider them as belonging to this difeafe, if 
I had not excited them by a different poifon from the vario- 
lous. I obferved, however, at that time, fome appearances 
of thefe eruptions different from thofe which ufually oecur in 
the fmall-pox. Almoft all the eruptions, in the ftage of defic-- 
cation, afforded fhining, fmooth, black or reddifh-brown fcabs ; 
very few of them having previoufly fuppurated. Finding, in 
two other inftances, that the matter from the inoeulated puftule 
of thefe patients produced a fimilar eruptive diforder, and alfo 
the fame being the event in the practice of two or three of my 
correfpondents, whom IJ had furnifhed with matter from the - 
above eruptive cafes, I from that time ufed matter only from 
the cafes in which no eruptions appeared. After this precau- 
tion, no eruptive cafes refembling the fmall-pox occurred in 
my practice during the whole of Jaft fummer and the prefent. 
winter. I fay, no cafes occurred refembling the fmall-pox ; 
but certainly eruptions, in number from a fingle one to about 
a dozen, which were large, red, hard pimples, with little or no 
lymph, and never with any pus, occurred, probably, in one 
cafe out of twenty or thirty. Thefe fpots, fo unlike the fmall- 
pox, produced no trouble; and were of fuch a fhort duration, _ 
that, when I {peak of eruptions, I do not include them in the 
number; I include in the account thofe only in which the 
¥ eruptions 
