INOCULATION. 



133 



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Tht Rv 

 Mr. Ma*, 

 sty. 



Or Wig. 



medical men, who were rather inclined to despise it 

 on account of the obscure origin of the invention, and 

 the progress of it was somewhat unsteady. It was for 

 some years forgotten from mere indifference, or held 

 in dread in consequence of the remonstrances of elo- 

 quent and pUusible adversaries. The inoculators were 

 sometimes assailed by the most formidable invective. 

 Mistakes occasionally arose among them in consequence 

 of the imperfection of the knowledge of the subject 

 under which they for some time laboured. Mr. Mail- 

 land, for instance, maintained that the inoculated small- 

 pox was incapable of transmitting infection, and he en- 

 couraged persons indiscriminately to handle children 

 under the lasenlatad disease, hi consequence of which 

 some received it in a severe or fatal form. Advan- 

 tage was taken of such occurrences to misrepresent 

 the whole motives of the advocates for inoculation ; 

 and the crimes of mercenary cruelty, and down- 

 right murder were '"fy*" 1 to them. A few theolo- 

 gians united their intemperate denunciations to swell 

 the amtial outry. In performing this imaginary duty, 

 the Rev. Mr. Massey maintained, " that the cutaneous 

 disease of. Job was produced by inoculation from the 



;af the devil, and that the whole art was of 

 invention." One of its most powerful oppo- 

 _ Dr. Wagstafte, physician to St. Bartholo- 

 mew's hospital, whose high character for learning and 

 professional practice gave nncommon weight to his 



tamty of tne oofvseooeocea, drawn from facts which 



ced it as contradictory to reason, and maintained that, 

 though some who were inoculated took the m'ltast in a 



sjigJstly. that no security could be expected against a 

 future attack, while others had it in the most alarming 

 form, and died under it. He denied its 

 ring the eanrtkutMB aaahial the disease 

 isjifcmnsd it . . taping up a focus of 



( 'intaci '" tr..: 1 ! 



ed. He took 



asBona? its t^tf 



I . .-- 



Dr. .'.-.-. 



said to h, 



Ilir-p 



OB fair inquiry, to be 

 t was, on the whole, 

 tin Dr. Jurin fixed the 

 the two important points in 

 bit of haw breach* to the teat 

 vUeh,ir 



Otoogh they ware generally 

 lie casas of chicken pox. The 



MB CNVnoBCQ IB HMB CNBaW* 



all rrlii 



ttosaperMdeallthe- 

 ruples. He first de- 

 '"--itheinoco. 



hajurdof 



acnin.t the ili.- 



and then those which pegged that the 

 MS* lass than that of the 



II po. He stated, that the whole number 

 of deaths, in London, for An 



rty y, 



908.79, 



i back, 

 of which 65,079 wen occasioned by the natural 



POX, nsVWIItlF tsMst Mff tutsM OsJu^lOVftsMtlth part of 



kind died of this disease, and as some must have 

 t having had the small pox in any form, he 

 , from a judicious calculation, that of those 

 who war* Misted with small-pox, two in seventeen, or 

 Mil/ one hi nine, died. But, by some actual inqui- 

 ries tew the history of numerous families, it appeared 



that the natural small-pox was fatal to one patient in Variolou* 

 five or six, while those who died of the inoculated dis- Inoculation. 

 ease were only one in 60. In the years 1 72 1 , 1 722, """Y"" 1 

 and 1723, 474 persons were inoculated in England, of 

 whom 9 died. In 1724, the number inoculated -was 

 only 40, of whom one died. In the following year, 

 when the natural small-pox was very prevalent, and very 

 mortal, 151 were inoculated, and in the following year 

 105, making 256 in these two years, of whom 4 died. 

 In the next two years only 124 inoculations took place. 

 Thus during the first 8 years of inoculation, 89" persons 

 were inoculated. From statements, it appears that S t,> 

 of these had true variolous pustules, and 13 an imper- 

 fect eruption ; in 39 no disease was produced by the 

 virus, and 17 were suspected to have died of the ino- 

 culatfd disease. From domiciliary visits, it was disco- 

 vered that of 18,829 persons who had been affected with 

 the natural small-pox, SOOS had died of it, i. e. one in six ; 

 whereas the deaths by inoculation, granting the utmost 

 contended for by its adversaries, did not exceed 1 in 50. 



Inoculation was first practised in Scotland in 1726 at Introdiir 

 Aberdeen, on eleven persons, by Mr. Maitland, who had t ""! ] int " 

 come home from Turkey ; and, as one of these cases c 

 proved fatal, a violent prejudice arose against it, in con- 

 sequence of lUiich it was for 20 years after this discon- 

 tinued in that part of the country. At Dumfries, it was 

 practised first in 1733, during the prevalence of a ma- 

 lignant variolous epidemic ; but in other parts of Scot- 

 land it was not adopted till about the year 1753. 



In Ireland, it was first introduced in 1 ?-,':; by Mr. into Ire- 

 Hall, surgeon m Dublin, who inoculated 10 persons. 1-"L 

 Other 9 operations were performed about the same 

 time, and of these the number that died was three, a Declines in 

 circumstance of a discouraging tendency. England. 



In England, inoculation declined during the twelve lu progress 

 years after 1786, i. e. till 1738. It was now, however, in America. 

 making considerable progress in the transatlantic world. 

 The popish missionsrJM introduced it among the abori- 

 gines of Sooth America, to whom the natural small- 

 pox was highly destructive. In 1738, when a fatal 

 epidemic prevailed in South Carolina, in consequence 

 of infection imported in a slave ship from the coast of 

 Africa, Mr. Moubray, surgeon, introduced inocula- 

 tion, and performed it on 450 persons. He was follow. 

 ed by Dr. Kirkpatrick and some others, so that the 

 number of the inoculated soon amounted to about 

 1000. Among these there wersj eight deaths. Dr. 

 Kirkpatrick published hi London, an essay on inocula- 

 tion, hi the year 1743. The practice was soon afur 

 rotted uted at Philadelphia, and in some of the West 

 India islands, where it proved still more successful in 

 ' ' ng the progress of a fatal epidemic. The nc- 

 uflUl success contributed to the revival of ino. 

 n in England in 1751 and the subsequent years. 

 gsjjcant Ranby had, in 1751, inoculated I UK) persons. 

 The writings of Dr. Mead and Dr. Frewen had con- 

 siderable weight on the side of inoculation. 



In 1746, a scheme was proposed by some public Small-pox 

 spirited characters, among whom were several persons sod inoeu- 

 of high rank, for a hospital for the reception of pa- U(lon ho - 

 tients casually affected with small-pox, and another for p "*' - 

 inoculating the poor. This was immediately opened 

 under the designation of " The Middlesex County Hos- 

 pital for small pox." Other two were soon after esta- 

 blished, and their plan was greatly extended. In 1 75O, 

 there was an institution, which consisted of three 

 houses ; viz. one in Old Street, for preparing the pa- 

 tients for inoculation, another in Frog-lane, Islington. 



