I 37 2 ] 
XXIII. Account of a Child who had the Small-pox in the Womb . 
In a Letter jrom William Wright, M* Z). F. R. S. to John 
Hunter, Eft. F„ R. S. 
Read May 2i, 1781. 
Southampton-buildings, Holbofo, 
S I R, Feb. 27, 1781. 
I HAVE read with much pleafure and information Mrs. 
ford’s cafe, which you publiftied in Phil. Tranf. vol. 
LXX. p. 128. From the faCts you have adduced it amounts 
to a certainty, that her foetus had received the variolous in- 
fection in the womb. 
This induces me to lay before you a fmgular cafe, that fell 
under my care fome years ago. I am forry I cannot be more 
particular, having unfortunately loft all my books and my 
notes of praCtice of this cafe and feveral others, by the capture, 
of the convoy on the 9th of laft Auguft. 
In 1768 the fmall-pox was fo general in Jamaica that very 
few people efcaped the contagion. About the middle of June 
Mr. peterkin, merchant at Martha-brae, in the parifh of 
Trelawney, got about fifty new negroes out of a fhip : foon 
after they landed, feveral were taken ill of a fever, and the 
fmall pox appeared ; the others were immediately inoculated. 
Amongft the number of thofe who had the difeafe in the 
natural way, was a woman of about twenty-two years of age, 
and big with child. The eruptive fever was flight, and the 
fmall-pox 
