100 SMALL-POX IN SHKKIV 



eating variola soon extended, and medical practitioners 

 became its advocates ; for experience demonstrated the 

 readiness with which the disease could be transmitted 

 from person to person, its mild character, and the 

 security it afforded to those inoculated. Veterinary 

 surgeons, stimulated by these examples, attempted to 

 l)ropagate the sheep-pox in the same manner, and 

 similar residts followed ; as equal immunity was af- 

 forded to the animals, and fewer deaths took ])lace 

 than from the natural disease. 



Various opinions prevail among medical historians 

 as to the orighi of inoculation, which undoubtedly was 

 practised in Asia long before its introduction into 

 Europe. It is supposed by many to have been early 

 known to the Chinese ; and INIoore, in his treatise on 

 the subject, states that " Father D'EntrecoUes was of 

 opinion that it was introduced about the sixteenth 

 century; but other Missionaries assure us that the 

 practice was invented in the tenth ; and there is a tra- 

 dition that it began as early as the dynasty of Song, 

 which was in the year of Christ 590. 



" These different dates, perhaps, may be accounted 

 for, from the practice having been long kept secret ; 

 and it appears neither to have been very general nor 

 much approved of in China. 



" No account is handed down of the origin of this 

 custom ; but the reverence in which agriculture is held 

 by the Chinese may have suggested the name, and the 

 usual manner of performing the operation. For they 

 took a few dried small-pox crusts, as if they were seeds, 

 and planted them in the nose. A bit of musk was 

 added, in order to correct the vivulence of the poison, 

 and perhaps to perfume the crusts ; and the whole was 



