" Though I was there only sixteen hours, that is, eight hours on the 31st of May, and eight on the 4th of June, I received accounts of seventy patients.
" Fifty-four of these were said to have gone through the vaccine disease.
" Sixteen had either not been inoculated, or no vesicle had appeared after the insertion of the vaccine virus.
" In the whole, both the inoculated and those who were not, there was a well marked eruptive fever.
" Very few of the cases were mild during their whole course, viz. about eight of the inoculated, and two of the uninoeu lated.
" It was not easy to classify them with greater minute ness as to their severity. There seemed to be, in this res pect, an insensible gradation.
" 01 the fifty-four who had been inoculated, one died. Of the sixteen who had not been inoculated, accounts were received of six deaths.
" Here we have in the one class, one death in fifty four ; in the other, more than one in three. But the ses taken into computation ought to be much more nu merous, in order to afford an average on which we can de pend.
" Of all who were attacked, none had been inoculated with the small.fiox." This last fact seemed to justify a remark which the au thor afterwards makes, and which has been subsequently animadverted on, that, " as a sure preventive of an attack of small-pox, there is a marked distinction between cow pox and the variolous inoculation." The security afford ed by the latter has had some rare exceptions ; but, on this occasion, we have found it securing the system from an epidemic which attacked numbers of vaccinated persons, while many who had received the old inoculation must have been equally exposed. This is a real difference be tween the two inoculations in one obvious point ; but is perfectly consistent with the confidence which cow-pox claims in obviating a very extensive and a very alarming danger. For the features of the different casts, and some casual suggestions for the further prosecution of the sub ject, as well as some marked instances of protection even from the attack of the same epidemic, we must refer to the account itself. We shall only further transcribe the sum mary of general practical conclusions there given, which, though differing in some instances from the belief previ ously entertained, are in their nature consoling.
" We are justified by the following considerations in Steadily adhering to this practical conclusion, that vac cination ought still to be valued, and universally recom mended.
"That by vaccination we do not positively endanger life. By the old inoculation, a disease was produced which was sometimes fatal. The danger artificially created was im mediate, while that which it was intended to obviate was remote. Yet the former was comparatively so small, as to prevail on the reflecting part of the community to concur in encountering it. In the vaccine inoculation, however, we are saved all these painful calculations, because we communicate an affection attended with no danger, and the power of which over the constitution is great, but si lent.
"Again, allowing that the individual who has been vac cinated is equally liable to small-pox with any other, no person will be bold enough on the large scale to as sert,) he is not liable to it in the same form as if vaccination had been omitted. This point cannot be longer doubted ; and, if we proceed at first on the supposition that the small pox succeeding vaccination is exactly equal in risk to the disease which used to be communicated in the old inocula tion, it must be allowed that we gain time in the life of the individual by preferring vaccination. He is not subjected to the risk in the first instance. Years may elapse berme he is exposed io the contagion of small-pox : When so ex posed, he will, in most cases, be protected from it by the cow-pox ; and, if at last he is attacked, he encounters a risk only equal to that which would have been earlier incurred by a previous inoculation with variolous matter.
" But this supposition is much less favourable than the truth. The risk even at that late period is far from being so great. The small-pox occurring in a vaccinated person is much safer than the inoculated small-pox. It has never been Maintained, that the disease induced by the variolous inoculation was always exempt from the occurrence of se condary fever. On the contrary, some of the few who died of the inoculation were cut off by that fever.