690 SUPPLEMENTARY APPENDIX. 



" Rules of Prevention " based on Haygarth's views of infection. In th 

 report of the Society, called shortly "The Small-pox Society," datei 

 September 1782, it is stated that in the four and a half years of it 

 existence two general inoculations had been held, and that the death 

 from small-pox had been greatly lessened. Great difficulties, howevei 

 were met with. " A large proportion of the inhabitants " refused inocula 

 tion, and a large proportion also, " being fearless, or rather desirous, tha 

 their children should be infected with the natural small-pox," refused t 

 I obey the Rules of Prevention. Hence, though the same report state 

 that the example of Chester had been followed by Liverpool, wher 

 " a general inoculation was successfully executed in the autumn of 178 

 and another in the spring of 1782," and in Leeds, where a genera 

 inoculation was held in 1781 and another proposed in 1782, with sue) 

 success that the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh appointed i 

 committee to inquire into " the modes of conducting the general inocula 

 tions of the poor " thus adopted in these places, the plan met with sucl 

 difficulties that it was ultimately abandoned. It will be observed that i 

 general inoculation was an essential part of the plan proposed am 

 •carried out in 1778-82 ; but, writing in 1784, Haygarth looked forwan 

 to being able ultimately to dispense with inoculation, and in the prefaci 

 to his later edition, published in 1793, he states more definitely that thi 

 adoption of his Rules of Prevention without any general - inoculatioi 

 might exterminate small-pox in some country other than Great Britain 

 It must be remembered, however, that Haygarth entertained the opinioi 

 that the infection of small-pox could not be carried through the air abov( 

 about half a yard, and that no one could be infected by the clothes of s 

 person visiting a small-pox patient provided that he kept beyond thii 

 distance from the patient. It is obvious that if this had been establishet 

 the control of the disease by isolation would be a much simpler mattei 

 than it really is. 



In the Medico-CMrurgical Review for 1796 there appeared an accoun- 

 ■of a work by Dr. Faust, of Leipsic, entitled " An Essay on the Duty oi 

 •' Man to separate persons infected with the Small-pox from those ii 

 " Health, thereby to effect the extirpation of that disease equally fron 

 ■" the towns and countries of Europe," in which it was argued that th( 

 -first person ill in a place is the only source from which all the rest 

 perhaps hundreds and thousands, become affected, and that if he wer( 

 put immediately into a situation where he could not injure by contact 

 those who had not had the disorder, the spread of the disease would be 

 prevented. 



In the same Review for 1799 appeared an account of establishments 

 for the extirpation of small-pox. The failure of inoculation to attain th( 

 desired end is referred to, and legislation is urged to facilitate isolation 

 It is further stated that in 1796 the Prussian CoUege of Physicians re 

 ported favourably to the King on the project, and that at Halberstadt ii 

 had been resolved to establish a house for the purpose. At Cote d'Or ii 

 France a similar plan had been tried with success. 



In 1798 Jenner's " Inquiry " was published, and in the early years of thii 

 -century inoculation began to be discouraged ; for a while the prospects oi 



