It should seem also, that when highly concocted variolous matter is inserted, the supervening pustules are larger, more in number, and maturate the most perfectly; and that the sores attendant upon the punctures are disposed to keep longer open.
We may deduce likewise, that in general far more than any previous preparation depends upon the patient's constitutional fitness for the reception of the variolous poison at the time of inoculation. This is evinced by the great latitude in the number of pustules of those, where the disease was produced, when the regimen, diet, physic, and variolous matter were precisely the same.
From what combination of causes may arise this constitutional fitness for receiving the variolous infection, is reserved for more acute physiologists than myself to determine.
It need not here be observed, that the small-pox, when the contagion is received in what is called the natural way, is frequently one of the most fatal diseases, that infest mankind. By what means the intensity of it is lessened the disease becomes milder by inoculation; whether it arises from the variolous virus being absorbed by the lymphatics upon the surface of the body, and not received in the first instance either into the lungs by respiration, or with the saliva or aliment into the stomach, is not intended to be discussed in this place. By computation from our bills of mortality, at a medium, out of every thousand who die of all
