VOL. LVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.' 533 



must have met with in a progress through various nations, of which some are 

 separated by polity as well as religion, while others, peculiarly tenacious of their 

 customs, are little disposed to admit those of strangers. 



That no mention is made of inoculation by Rhazes, Avicenna, or any other 

 of the ancient Arabian medical writers known in Europe, is, he believes, in 

 general supposed; and he was assured by the native physicians here, that nothing 

 is to be found regarding it, in any of a more modern date. Some learned 

 Turkish friends at Aleppo, sometime before were prevailed on at his request 

 to make inquiry, but had not been able to discover any thing concerning 

 inoculation; though they searched not only the medical writers, but also the 

 historians, and some of the poets. 



It appears from accounts communicated to the r. s. in the year 1723, by 

 Dr. Williams and Mr. Wright, that inoculation had been known in certain parts 

 of Wales so far back as the last century; and it is remarkable, that it there bore 

 the same name, by which it is most generally known to the Arabs. He thinks 

 it has also been discovered to be an ancient practice among the vulgar in different 

 parts of the continent. If inoculation was really known so long ago in Europe, 

 and the accounts of it till within these 50 or 6o years are found to be merely 

 traditional, the silence of the Arabian writers, on a practice which probably was 

 never adopted by their physicians, is the less to be wondered at. What may 

 perhaps appear more strange, is, that after the year 1720, though the curiosity 

 of the public has, at different times, been excited by the controversies relating 

 to inoculation, the state of that practice in Syria, where there were so many 

 European settlements, should have remained unknown both in England and in 

 France, which probably was the case, as the advocates for inoculation have made 

 no reference to it. 



Whether before the account transmitted by Pylarini to the r. s., inoculation had 

 not been mentioned by any of the travellers who had visited these countries, 

 he did not presume to determine. In the books he had had occasion to peruse, 

 there is nothing to be found on the subject. Among the travellers the most 

 likely to have mentioned it was Rauwolf: yet, however rational it may be to 

 think that a practice of such a kind, had it then prevailed, could hardly have 

 escaped the notice of so diligent an observer, it would be rash to infer from his 

 silence that it was not known to the Arabs in the l6th century. The justly 

 celebrated French botanist is equally silent, though in the beginning of the 

 present century he visited several places where inoculation was undoubtedly at 

 that time both known and practised. 



Having related in what manner he came to learn inoculation was known to 

 the Arabs, he could arrogate no merit in the discovery; nor would he be thought 

 to insinuate any reflection on the accuracy of the indefatigable M. Tournefort, 



