^ THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 



advice, and looked upon the event as a punishment from 

 heaven. In another village, not far from the above-men- 

 tioned, I had to attend a whole family of eight persons, old 

 and young, who were vaccinated all at the same time. After 

 eight days, upon calling on them, I found a young man of 

 about twenty years of age, in agony, in consequence of con- 

 fluent small-pox, which eruption had taken place on the 

 evening of the vaccination. He was the only person in the 

 house on whom the vaccination had failed, on account of the 

 man having carried on his shoulders a dead body that was 

 infected with the natural small-pox ; thus the lymph failed, 

 by the counter-agency of the contagion. The rest of the 

 family enjoyed excellent health, and were saved through the 

 medium of vaccination. 



There is an opinion prevalent, that vaccination will only 

 keep off the small-pox for a period of twenty years. I was 

 (if I am not mistaken) vaccinated in my native country, 

 In the year 1800, with such an excellent lymph (not 

 crust), that I treated a great many cases of small-pox, 

 such as lately occurred in the years 1848 and 1849, at 

 Lahore, without being affected by the disease myself, 

 and that without having been a second time vaccinated. 

 Nevertheless, if the second or third vaccination is of no use, 

 it does no injury to the constitution. In one year I got 

 from English physicians, lymph of quite different quali- 

 ties, some from Umbala, and some from Delhi ; the former 

 was of a good quality, but the latter was of a very bad 

 one, as the pustules sprang rapidly up and vanished in a 

 very short time ; neither was the areola of them red 

 enough, which accounted for many of those whom I vaccinat- 

 ed catching the small-pox. I therefore discontinued to 

 vaccinate with the matter from Delhi, after I had receiv- 

 ed some of a better quality from Umbala. 



At Tripoli, I met with the then new Governor Bar- 

 ber, who although of very low birth, had managed to 

 get possession of the fortress, and afterwards of the town 

 itself, by fraud and cunning. He was a short-necked 

 man, thickset, inclined to apoplexy (Habitus apoplecticus). 



