220 
Ben ja  m  in  Frank  hn. 
Am.  Jour.  Phartu 
May,  1906. 
Franklin  was  also  very  fond  of  water  ;  he  himself  tells  us  how,  as 
a  journeyman  printer  in  London,  he  attracted  considerable  attention 
by  his  skill  as  a  swimmer,  and  how  later  in  life  he  was  able  to  cure 
himself  of  a  cutaneous  trouble  by  repeated  bathing.  In  later  years, 
he  is  said  to  have  derived  great  benefit  from  the  use  of  hot  or  warm 
baths  which  he  took  in  a  specially  constructed  bath  tub  or  bathing 
machine. 
Benjamin  Franklin's  connection  with  the  then  newly  introduced 
practice  of  inoculating  for  smallpox  is  another  instance  of  his  far- 
sightedness, and  one  for  which  he  should  be  duly  credited. 
We  of  the  present  day  cannot  appreciate  the  havoc  and  conster- 
nation that  was  wrought  by  this  dread  disease  two  centuries  or  more 
ago. 
The  American  colonies  appear  to  have  been  particularly  suscept- 
ible to  periodic  visitations  of  malignant  smallpox,  and  historians 
tell  us  that  not  alone  did  the  disease  spread  with  alarming  rapidity, 
but  that  the  accompanying  mortality,  in  nearly  all  of  the  recorded 
epidemics,  was  extremely  high. 
Dr.  Zabdiel  Boylston,  a  noted  practitioner  of  Boston,  introduced 
the  practice  of  inoculation  into  that  city  as  early  as  172 1.  In  this 
he  met  with  considerable  opposition  by  all  classes  of  people,  and 
the  practice  itself  spread  so  slowly  that  for  nearly  a  decade  it 
appears  to  have  been  confined  to  Boston  and  its  immediate  vicinity. 
In  1730  smallpox  was  epidemic  in  Philadelphia,  and  at  least 
several  of  the  physicians  of  that  city  decided  to  try  the  practice 
of  inoculation.  The  interest  that  Franklin  took  in  this  practice  is 
evidenced  by  the  tone  of  the  following  clipping  from  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette  of  March  4,  1730. 
n  The  practice  of  inoculation  for  the  smallpox  begins  to  grow 
among  us  ;  J.  Growden,  Esq.,  the  first  patient  of  note,  is  now  upon 
recovery,  having  had  none  but  the  most  favorable  symptoms  during 
the  whole  course  of  his  distemper,  which  is  mentioned  to  show  how 
groundless  all  of  those  reports  are  that  .have  been  spread  through 
the  Province  to  the  contrary." 
Quite  a  number  of  other  notices  of  similar  tone  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  during  the  years  that  it  was  published 
by  Franklin,  and  it  is  evident  everywhere  that  Franklin  took  an 
active  part  in  the  popularization  and  spread  of  the  practice. 
In  1759,  while  in  England,  Franklin  wrote,  for  Dr.  William 
Heberdeen,  an  account  of  the  practice  of  inoculation  for  the  small- 
