Let this method, I say, and mine be tried upon two different patients, and I will warrant the success of this double experiment to be such, that the latter will be thought preferable, even to the natural small-pox; and we shall shudder to think how much the ills that nature sends us may be aggravated by mismanagement, a worse evil than those which it pretends to cure.
Although the observance of the above rules may alone suffice to render the inoculated small-pox always mild and absolutely safe, yet I will not omit mentioning two helps, which art might afford to concur to the same end.
The first is the use of antispasmodics[1], the efficacy of which has been experienced by the ablest practitioners, and I may say by myself. I have constantly found their effect to be easy, without any bad consequence. I observed that they might safely be given in larger doses in this distemper than in any other, or even in health; and their effect afforded me a farther demonstration, that the nerves are of all the organs the most affected in the small-pox. But these remedies must only be used in the first period, and not after the eruption.
The second expedient is new, and I only propose it as a hint deserving of farther experiments.
- ↑ I could have wished our author had specified what antispasmodics he meant.
