INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
691 
\ 
fact of inoculation having been prohibited in man has been 
made an argument for its prohibition in the sheep. It has 
been forgotten by the objectors that we have no option in 
the sheep, as in man, between vaccination and inoculation. 
Wide and extended experiment has shown that vaccination 
is valueless as a protection against smallpox in the sheep. But 
wider and more extended experiment has further shown, on 
the other hand, the great value of inoculation in mitigating the 
severity, diminishing the losses, and restraining the epizootic 
tendency of the disease. What Dr. Copland states of 
inoculated smallpox in man, in his great and unrivalled 
work, is, in many respects, true also of the inoculated 
affection in the sheep. 
“The chief objections here urged/ 5 he writes, “'against 
inoculation were partly specious and partly just. Inoculation, 
practised by ignorant, unskilled, and unprofessional hands, 
in improper seasons, ages, and circumstances, or with a total 
disregard of the states of health of those subjected to it, may 
occasionally be followed by dangerous or even fatal results. 
Nevertheless it has been shown that, with all these drawbacks, 
and without the precautions, the science, and the care which 
the educated physician can employ, the proportion of deaths 
among the inoculated does not rise above 5 in 1000. That 
inoculation would spread the distemper is certainly true 
when a few only resort to it; but even such diffusion would 
prevent the recurrence of those pestilential epidemics which 
follow the accumulations of a great number of unprotected 
in one locality, and would diffuse the disease in a milder 
form than when it occurs epidemically; for it has been fully 
proved that infection from the inoculated distemper generally 
does not communicate so severe or dangerous an attack as 
infection from a natural and epidemic cause. Besides, if 
inoculation were generally adopted at a proper age, there 
could not possibly be the pabulum for an epidemic outbreak, 
and scarcely the occurrence of a natural case. 
“Against this amount of unfavorable contingency must 
be placed the firm confidence of protection which inoculation 
furnishes to all persons, in all climates, and to all races 
within the tropics, and to the dark varieties of the species. 
In these climates and races vaccination (which the law has 
made to supersede inoculation) has been demonstrated to be 
inefficacious; but in all these circumstances, however diver¬ 
sified or opposite, inoculation has been found, and still is 
found, the most certain protection from the severer distemper 
and from epidemic outbreaks/ 5 * 
* ‘ Dictionary of Practical Medicine/ vol. iii, p. 830. 
