Medicine. 287 



A degree of the same prejudice and opposition, 

 which raged with so much violence in Boston, 

 continued to be manifested not only there, but 

 also in many other places, for a considerable time 

 afterwards. But the practice gradually gained 

 ground, and became general in New-England; iii 

 a few years it was adopted in New-York and Phila- 

 delphia; and in the year 1738 had reached Charles- 

 ton, in South-Carolina. 



Till near the close of the century now under con- 

 sideration, the inoculation of the small-pox con- 

 tinued more and more to prevail, and to become 

 the settled habit of all that portion of society who 

 were placed in easy circumstances, and possessed 

 the better degrees of intelligence. The advantages, 

 however, of this practice, notwithstanding all its 

 benefits to the individuals who employed it, were 

 supposed by many, on a general calculation of 

 human life, to be extremely problematical. By 

 carrying the disease more frequently and univer- 

 sally through cities and countries, it was found that 

 the poorer classes of people, which constitute the 

 great mass of every nation, were much oftener ex- 

 posed to casual infection; and that, on the whole, 

 the mortality of mankind from this disease was 

 thereby much augmented. 



But such doubts and difficulties as these arising 

 in the mind of the philanthropist, and much of the 

 importance of the inoculation of the small-pox, 

 even to those who employed it, were removed by 

 the discovery of the inoculation of the Vaccine Dis- 

 ease, in the year 1798. This may perhaps be justly 

 considered as the most memorable improvement 

 over made in the practice of physic. By substi- 

 tuting a disease so much milder that it cannot fail 

 of being universally preferred, and one which at 

 the same time affords effectual security against the 

 small-pox, the prospect is presented of speedily 



