Sol Medicine, [Chap. IV, 



But the eighteenth century may boast of the first 

 regular and satisfactory notices of this noble im- 

 proveftient, and of making it to be understood and 

 practised in an intelligent manner among all the 

 enlightened part of mankind. It is generally said 

 that the Circassians first inoculated their children in 

 order to rear them as slaves for the Turkish se- 

 raglio; and it was certainly first introduced into 

 Constantinople from Georgia, towards the end of 

 the preceding age. From Constantinople the Bri-. 

 tish nation received an account of the practice of 

 it by the celebrated lady M. W. Montague, who 

 caused the disease to be thus communicated to her 

 own children. In IT^l, inoculation was first regu- 

 larly adopted in England; and in the succeeding 

 year, the operation being performed upon some of 

 the children of the royal family, it soon began to 

 be in vogue. Objections both of a physical, moral, 

 and religious kind were urged against this new 

 practice, with great zeal and intemperance, by 

 many respectable persons of the medical and cle- 

 rical professions, as well as by others of inferioP' 

 character. These objections for some time excited 

 scruples in the minds of many well-disposed people, 

 and greatly retarded the progress of inoculation. 

 Having at length, however, surmounted these dif- 

 ficulties, tlie value of the discovery became every 

 day more highly rated, and before the middle of 

 the century might be considered as established upon 

 the firmest basis. 



In the year 1721, and in the same month in 

 wiiich the daughter of lady Montague' was inocu- 



i-ouiitry, are in general most simple, uniform, and stationary, were 

 f jun;l to reUiin a practice which the more polished had lost? 



