An inquiry into the laws of different epidemic diseases : with the view to determine the means of preserving individuals and communities from each, and also to ascertain the probability of exterminating the small-pox / by Joseph Adams.

  • Adams, Joseph, 1756-1818.
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the laws of different epidemic diseases : with the view to determine the means of preserving individuals and communities from each, and also to ascertain the probability of exterminating the small-pox / by Joseph Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    104/170 (page 96)
    The firfl perfonages in the empire determined to fet the example, by fubriiitting to the operation; and a refolution was accordingly taken by the Em- prefs, toTnvite a phyfician from England, where inoculation had been moft pradlifed, and was gene¬ rally allowed to have received fome modern,.and very confiderable, improvements/’ Such was the Hate of St. Peterlburgh in lefs than fifty years after it was built, with every pre¬ caution againfl fmall-pox contagion, and before inoculation was known in that city. No further arguments, I trufl, will be neceflary to fhow that the fudden interference with the prac¬ tice of half a century is not an unimportant confi- deration. Nor ought the reader to fuppofe that thofe who are filent upon, or feel it their duty to differ from, the prefent popular voice, are lefs anx:- ious for the extermination of fmali-pox. The fub- jecl, it has been fhown, is not new, though the former opponents of inoculation never applied to parliament fpr prohibitory or reftridtive laws. Yet their cafe was, according to the prefent lanr guage, opprefTive beyond any thing inflidled by Herodian cruelty. For if the difeafe was only kept up by inoculation, thofe who refufed to fub- mi^ to it were expofed to all the terrors of the , ^afual difeafe. If any defence was then thought neceflary, for what all were cenfured if they omit¬ ted, probably it might have been urged that the fame means were open to all, and that the prudent 0tou]d not fuffer for the inattentive : that even thofe ^ i? . ■ . ^ \y\\Q