salutary practice; it is a murderous scheme[1]; and in this opposition of facts, the wife man might remain in suspence.
But if the methods were not the same, the two propositions ought to be altered into these: inoculation, when managed in a certain manner, may be dangerous; but if managed in another way, it is useful and salutary.
This last conclusion will be admitted by every unprejudiced mind. If the Essex people were inoculated differently from those of Blandford, as in fact they were, we shall be able to assert, that the former were inoculated in a proper, and the latter in an improper, manner; and consequently, that there is a right as well as a wrong method of inoculating.
The history of this practice will hardly furnish any other instance of so great an inequality; but a number of facts may be found differing enough to warrant the same inference; and my own experience would have led me to the same conclusion.
I have attended above a thousand inoculations, either performed by other people, or managed by myself; I have tried every known method; the rules prescribed have sometimes been observed, and sometimes neglected by me. By singular good luck, I have lost not one patient; but all the other accidents imputed to inoculation have fallen under my inspection.
- ↑ This is somewhat exaggerated.
