CHAP. VIII.

THE DISCOVERY OF INOCULATION, AND THE OPPOSITION IT ENCOUNTERED.

HE plans to mitigate the Small Pox, which

THE

have hitherto been shewn, were devised by physicians. But at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was communicated to the Royal Society of London, a discovery to which the Faculty can lay no claim; and as it was brought to England from Constantinople, it was at first named the Byzantine operation, although certainly not invented there.

According to medical authorities in China, the custom of sowing the Small Pox, which is in some degree analogous to inoculation, had been long in use. Father D'Entrecolles * was of opinion that it was introduced about the sixteenth century; but other Missionariest assure

*Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses ecrites par des Missionaries. Paris, 1781. tom. xviii. p. 353. tom. xxi.

† Memoires concernant L'Histoire, les Sciences, &c. des Chinois, par les Missionaries de Pekin. Tom. iv. p. 392.

us, that the practice was invented in the tenth; and there is a tradition that it began as early as the dynasty of Song, which was in the year of Christ 590.

These different dates perhaps may be accounted for, from the practice having been long kept secret; and it appears neither to have been very general, nor much approved of in China.

No account is handed down of the origin of this custom; but the reverence in which agriculture is held by the Chinese, may have suggested the name, and the usual manner of performing the operation. For they took a few dried Small Pox crusts, as if they were seeds, and planted them in the nose. A bit of musk was added, in order to correct the virulence of the poison, and perhaps to perfume the crusts; and the whole was wrapt in a little cotton, to prevent its dropping out of the nostril.

The crusts employed were always taken from a healthy person, who had had the Small Pox favourably; and, with the vain hope of mitigating their acrimony, they were sometimes kept in close jars for years, and at other times were fumigated with salutary plants. Some physicians beat the crusts into powder, and advised their patients to take a pinch of this snuff; and when they could not prevail upon them, they mixed it with water into a paste, and applied it in that form.

These practices, however ancient, and the consequent treatment, which is not worth relating, are proofs that knowledge is not to be attained by time alone.

In Hindostan,* if tradition may be relied upon, inoculation itself has been practised from remote antiquity. This practice was in the hands of a particular tribe of Bramins, who were delegated from various religious colleges, and who travelled through the provinces for that purpose. The natives were strictly enjoined to abstain during a month, preparatory to the operation, from milk and butter; and when the Arabians and Portuguese appeared in that country, they were prohibited from taking animal food also.

Men were commonly inoculated on the arm, but the girls not liking to have their arms disfigured, chose that it should be done low on the shoulders. But whatever part was fixed upon, was well rubbed with a piece of cloth, which afterwards became a perquisite of the Bramin; he then made a few slight scratches on the skin, with a sharp instrument, and took a little bit of

* Essai Apologetique sur la Methode de communiquer la petite verole par inoculation. M. Chais.

An Account of the manner of Inoculating in the East Indies, by J. Z. Holwell, F.R.S. London, 1767.

cotton, which had been soaked the preceding year in variolous matter, moistened it with a drop or two of the holy water of the Ganges, and bound it upon the punctures. During the whole of this ceremony, the Bramin always preserved a solemn countenance, and recited the prayers appointed in the Attharva Veda, to propitiate the Goddess who superintends the Small Pox.

The Bramin then gave his instructions which were religiously observed. In six hours the bandage was to be taken off, and the pledget to be allowed to drop spontaneously. Early next morning cold water was to be poured upon the patient's head and shoulders, and this was to be repeated until the fever came on. The ablution was then to be omitted; but as soon as the eruption appeared, it was to be resumed, and persevered in every morning and evening, till the crusts should fall off. Whenever the pustules should begin to change their colour they were all to be opened with a fine pointed thorn.

Confinement to the house was absolutely forbidden; the inoculated were to be freely exposed to every air that blew; but when the fever was upon them, they were sometimes permitted to lie on a mat at the door.

Their regimen was to consist of the most refrigerating productions of the climate; as plan

tains, water melons, thin gruel made of rice, or poppy seeds, cold water, and rice.

A small present was made to the Bramin, who always laid an injunction on the family to make a thanksgiving offering to the Goddess upon their

recovery.

It is curious to consider how a treatment so admirable, and so superior to those which Arabian and European learning had laboriously constructed, should have been found out by these simple and superstitious Bramins.

And although it is never admissible to frame suppositions in order to explain the operations of Nature, yet, in the absence of facts, we may advance conjectures on human inventions; because one man may be capable of penetrating the motives which influenced another.

It could not long escape observation, that the Small Pox was infectious; and that in some seasons this infection was most destructive, and in others very mild. mild. A plain man whose head was not perplexed with abstruse theories, might think that possibly a mild Small Pox could be excited by matter taken from a favorable case; and that it was advisable to anticipate the evil in a healthy season, rather than risk the being seized afterwards with a malignant species of Small Pox.

Should he determine to make the trial, it