Miscellaneous Facts and Observations, 183 



37. It gives me great pleasure to leam, from your 

 letter of the 25th of April, that the Vaccine Disease 

 maintains its credit undiminished with you. It does 

 the same with us, in every case Avhere it has been pro- 

 perly conducted : but from the carelessness, inattention, 

 or ignorance, I will not say the design, of some inocu- 

 lators (though, from their clamour against substituting 

 the vaccine in the place of the variolous disease, they 

 have given cause for suspicion), there have been three or 

 four, instances of persons, who have been said to have 

 had the vaccine disease, that have taken the small-pox 

 tliis season ; but not one that has had the operation per- 

 formed, aiid pronounced safe, by any practitioner of re- 

 putation. Some, who have taken the chicken-pox, 

 have been pronounced, by the ignorant and inexperi- 

 enced, to have had the small-pox ; and there is a report, 

 but whether founded on fact or not I cannot tell, that 

 certain quacks have inoculated persons ^\ ith the chicken- 

 pox matter, after they have had the kine-pox, for the 

 nefarious purpose of bringing the vaccine inoculation 

 into discredit. 



I find the scab of the vaccine pock retains the infec- 

 tious principle much longer than the lymph, and, when 

 recent, communicates the genuine disease with equal 

 certainty, if properly diluted and rendered fluid. For 

 this important discovery, we are indebted to Dr. Bryce, 

 of Edinburgh. 



Dr. William Currie. 

 Letter (dated Philadelphia^ May 17 th, 1805 J 

 to Dr. Tucker Harris, of Charleston. 



