252 APPENDIX. 



But little difficulty has occurred in convincing the Indians of 

 the efficacy of vaccination; and the universal dread in which 

 they hold the appearance of the small pox among them, rendered 

 it an easy task to overcome their prejudices, whatever they 

 chanced to be. The efficacy of the vaccine disease is well 

 appreciated, even by the most interior of the Chippewa Indians, 

 and so universal is this information, that only one instance 

 occurred where the Indian had never heard of the disease. 



In nearly every instance the opportunity which was presented 

 for vaccination was embraced with cheerfulness and apparent 

 gratitude ; at the same time manifesting great anxiety that, for 

 the safety of the whole, each one of the band should undergo the 

 operation. When objections were made to vaccination, they were 

 not usually made because the Indian doubted the protective power 

 of the disease, but because he supposed (never having seen its 

 progress) that the remedy must nearly equal the disease which 

 it was intended to counteract. 



Our situation, while travelling, did not allow me sufficient time 

 to test the result of the vaccination in most instances ; but an 

 occasional return to bands where the operation had been performed, 

 enabled me, in those bands, either to note the progress of the 

 disease, or to judge from the cicatrices marking the original situa- 

 tion of the pustules, the cases in which the disease had proved 

 successful. 



About one-fourth of the whole number were vaccinated directly 

 from the pustules of patients labouring under the disease; while 

 the remaining three-fourths were vaccinated from crusts, or from 

 virus which had been several days on hand. I did not pass by a 

 single opportunity for securing the crusts and virus from the arms 

 of healthy patients ; and to avoid as far as possible the chance of 

 o-iving rise to a disease of a spurious kind, I invariably made use 

 of those crusts and that virus, for the purposes of vaccination, 

 which had been most recently obtained. To secure, as far as 

 possible, against the chances of escaping the vaccine disease, I 

 invariably vaccinated in each arm. 



Of the whole number of Indians vaccinated, I have either 

 watched the progress of the disease, or examined the cicatrices 

 of about seven hundred. An average of one in three of those van- 





