assault; in which he flatly accused him of cowardice. This charge did not however excite a renewal of the duel; and no public notice appears to have been taken of it: which forbearance certainly did not proceed from forgiveness; for in the preface to Dr. Mead's Essay on the Small Pox and Measles, there is a virulent invective against Dr. Woodward: but this was not published till 1747, about twenty years after the professor's death.

Commotion strange ! as both Mead and Woodward spent the greater part of their lives in acquiring, and endeavouring to diffuse knowledge; and in striving to cure or relieve those afflicted with maladies. The former even tried to find out remedies for the plague, for hydrophobia, and for other mortal poisons; while the latter attempted to discover the theory of the structure of the great globe itself.

Ought not such lofty pursuits to have elevated them above the weaknesses of ordinary men? Ought not such congenial studies to have kindled in their breasts mutual respect and friendship? Yet these medical philosophers caned and fought each other with swords in the public streets; and the sole cause of their fury was a difference of opinion about a cathartic!

The above anecdote is given from authentic cotemporary sources, yet is purposely left out

in all the printed lives of those * physicians. Such omissions render biography fallacious and insipid.

Although Freind maintained with his pen, and Mead with his sword, the propriety of giving purgatives in the secondary fever of Small Pox, yet this doctrine is not in vogue at present. Indeed these very learned and experienced physicians fixt upon the only period for these medicines, in which they are now considered to be detrimental.

Still the above discussion led to frequent trials, and the ancient prejudice vanished: for purgatives were gradually prescribed, not not only preparatory to inoculation, but also in the early stages of the variolous disease.

The election made by different practitioners of the medicines of this class was various. In America †, a combination of calomel and antimony became a favorite composition, and

Life of Mead, by Dr. Maty.

The Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, by J. Ward, F. R. S. 1740. vol. ii. p. 283. &c. &c.

† A Discourse on the Preparation of the Body for the Small Pox, &c. &c. by Dr. Adam Thomson. Philadelphia, 1750.

Pennsylvania Gazette, June 26th, 1760. A Dissertation on the Inoculation of the Small Pox in America, by Dr. Benjamin Gale of Connecticut, in New England.

was thence transferred to England. And besides * purgatives; emetics, bleeding, blisters, opiates, and nervous drugs, were all in use to combat the fever and convulsive fits, which sometimes ensued after inoculation. It was also the established practice then, to confine the patients to their beds, and to encourage perspiration. The sores from inoculation frequently required much attention: they were always painful, and as the discharge was encouraged, they usually remained open during five or six weeks, and often longer.

Inoculation had therefore become a very serious affair for the preparatory treatment lasted commonly a month, and medical attendance was requisite for five or six weeks longer and though occasional disasters were palliated, they could not be wholly concealed. Families, in moderate circumstances, and timid mothers, were not therefore very easily induced to incur the expence and risk of such a process. Consequently, the practice of inoculation, though widely diffused, was in a great measure confined to the opulent. In London it was more generally practised than elsewhere; and four or five hundred poor

* An account of the preparation and management necessary to Inoculation, by James Burgess, 1754. Analysis of Inoculation, by Dr. Kirkpatrick, 1754.

people were likewise annually inoculated in the Small Pox hospital. The practice in Scotland had been resumed at Dumfries in 1733, and had gradually extended to Edinburgh, and to the most remote cities. It appeared from a calculation made by Professor Monro* in 1765, that between five and six thousand persons had been inoculated in the whole of Scotland, in thirty-one years; which, on an average, was one hundred and eight annually and the fatal cases amounted to one in seventy-eight. Nothing therefore could be more vain than the expectations of those, who imagined that such a system could ever be universally adopted.

* An account of Inoculation in Scotland, by Alexander Monro, sen. M.D.

CHAP. X.

INOCULATION IMPROVED, AND WIDELY EXTENDED.

THE SUTTONS.

BARON DIMSDALE.

OME of the circumstances which attended

SOME

the progress of inoculation through Great Britain, are not flattering to the philosophic character of the nation.

'Twas first rumoured, as a practice followed by some poor old Turkish and Arabian women. A lady of quality then introduced it into the Royal family, and among the higher circles in England; and now it will be shewn, that it finally acquired popularity by the artifices of an empiric. For Daniel Sutton, with his secret nostrums, propagated inoculation more in half a dozen years, than both the faculties of Medicine and Surgery, with the aid of the church, and the example of the Court, had been able do in half a century. This man was the son of Robert Sutton, a surgeon at Debenham in Suffolk, and he and his brother assisted their father in his business. But after a time, both

to