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SMaLL-POX.

beforehand to render this disease favorable than any one weknow, as almost all the danger from it may be prevented byinoculation. This salutary invention has been known in Eu-rope above half a century, but, like most other useful discove-ries, it has till of late made but slow progress. It must how-ever be acknowledged, to the honor of this country, that ino-culation has met with a more favorable reception here thanamong any of our neighbors. It is still however far frombeing general, which we have some reason to fear will everbe the case, so long as the practice continues in the hands ofthe faculty.

No discovery can ever be of general utility while the prac-tice of it is kept in the hands of a few. Had the inoculationof the small-pox been introduced as a fashion, and not as amedical discovery, or had it been practised by the same kindof operators here as it is in those countries from whence wehad it, it had long ago been universal. The fears, the jea-lousies, the prejudices, and the opposite interests of the facul-ty, are, and ever will be, the most effectual obstacles to theprogress of any salutary discovery. Hence it is that thepractice of inoculation never became, in any measure, general,even in England, till taken up by men not bred to physic.These have not only rendered the practice more extensive,but likewise more safe, and, by acting under less restraint thanthe regular practitioners, have taught them that the patient'sgreatest danger arose, not from the want of care, but fromthe excess of it.

They know very little of the matter who impute the suc-cess of modern inoculators to any superior skill, either in pre-paring the patient or communicating the disease. Some ofthem indeed, from a sordid desire of engrossing the wholepractice to themselves, pretend to have extraordinary secretsor nostrums for preparing persons for inoculation, whichnever fail of success. But this is only a pretence calculatedto blind the ignorant and inattentive. Common sense andprudence alone are sufficient both in the choice of the sub-ject and management of the operation. Whoever is pos-sessed of these may perform this office for his children when-ever he finds it convenient, provided they be in a good stateof health.

This sentiment is not the result of theory, but of observa-tion. Though few physicians have had more opportunitiesof trying inoculation in all its different forms, so little appears