IS 13.] On Vaccination. 27^ 



Crimea, assures us that out of 7^65 individuals vaccinated in six 

 months, not a single accident intervened, except one, in w4iich 

 the small-pox appeared the day after vaccination.* 



Finally, in 1810 M. Curioni, Minister of the Interior at 

 Milan, wrote to M. Sacco that as far as his information went 

 not a single instance had occurred of small-pox appearing upon 

 individuals that had been vaccinated, and no disease whatever 

 had followed the process.t 



It appears to us that the small number of unfavourable obser- 

 vations which have been collected, and among which we must 

 not include those not well authenticated, and which depend upon 

 assertions destitute of proof, disappear entirely before such a 

 mass of facts. 



FIFTH QUESTION. 



Supposing that inoculation for the small-pox has the advantage 

 of sometimes favouring the cure of certain chronical diseases^ 

 is this advantage peculiar to it, and ought it to ensure it a 

 preference over vaccination P ' 



This fifth question does not present fewer difficulties than the 

 preceding. 



In speaking of the diseases, the origin of which has been 

 referred to vaccination, we might have observed that the same 

 reproach had been thrown against the small-pox, and that not 

 without some reason. Not to mention former authors suspected 

 of partiality, we shall satisfy ourselves with referring to the 

 authors of the Bibliotheque Britannique, who have given some 

 instances. J Other facts of an opposite nature have been 

 alleged, showing that inoculation is an epoch of an advantageous 

 change in the constitution, by the cessation of various infirmi- 

 ties, and the confirmation of the health and constitution of the 

 person inoculated. 



These advantages have been ascribed either to the perfection 

 of the eruption, and the regularity of the general commotion 

 which accompanies it, or regarded as the etfect of the suppura- 

 tions prolonged in the place where the inoculation was performed; 

 a phenomenon which has been imitated by means of a suppli- 

 mentary suppuration, induced by blisters when the circumstances 

 of the case seemed to require it. It has been conceived that 

 these evacuations destroyed the causes of the diseases formerly 

 existing, and in the midst of which the small-pox had made its 

 appearance. 



Observers will not consider it as a contradiction to say that a 



« Blbl. Brit. vol. xliv. p. 286. 



+ Bib!. Brit. vol. xU. p. 228; and Trattato della YacciBationc, p. 210, 

 t. Bibi. Brit. vol. ix, p, 395. 



