VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX 175 



it en any other principle than that of the matter being placed 

 in this situation instead of the skin. 



It was the practice of another, whom I well remember, to 

 pinch up a small portion of the skin on the arms of his pa- 

 tients and to pass through it a needle, with a thread attached 

 to it previously dipped in variolous matter. The thread was 

 lodged in the perforated part, and consequently left in con- 

 tact with the cellular membrane. This practice was attended 

 with the same ill success as the former. Although it is very 

 improbable that any one would now inoculate in this rude 

 way by design, yet these observations may tend to place a 

 double guard over the lancet, when infants, whose skins are 

 comparatively so very thin, fall under the care of the 

 inoculator. 



A very respectable friend of mine, Dr. Hardwicke, of Sod- 

 bury, in this county, inoculated great numbers of patients 

 previous to the introduction of the more modern method by 

 Sutton, and with such success that a fatal instance occurred 

 as rarely as since that method has been adopted. It was 

 the doctor's practice to make as slight an incision as possible 

 upon the skin, and there to lodge a thread saturated with 

 the variolous matter. When his patients became indisposed, 

 agreeably to the custom then prevailing, they were directed 

 to go to bed and were kept moderately warm. Is it not 

 probable then that the success of the modern practice may 

 depend more upon the method of invariably depositing the 

 virus in or upon the skin, than on the subsequent treatment 

 of the disease? 



I do not mean to insinuate that exposure to cool air, and 

 suffering the patient to drink cold water when hot and thirsty, 

 may not moderate the eruptive symptoms and lessen the num- 

 ber of pustules; yet, to repeat my former observation, I 

 cannot account for the uninterrupted success, or nearly so, 

 of one practitioner, and the wretched state of the patients 

 under the care of another, where, in both instances, the gen- 

 eral treatment did not differ essentially, without conceiving 

 it to arise from the different modes of inserting the matter 

 for the purpose of producing the disease. As it is not the 

 identical matter inserted which is absorbed into the constitu- 

 tion, but that which is, by some peculiar process in the animal 



