Volume 3

A letter to the learned Caleb Cotesworth ... Containing, a comparison between the mortality of the natural small pox, and that given by inoculation ... To which is subjoined, an account of the success of inoculation in New England; as likewise an extract from several letters concerning a like method of communicating the small pox, that has been used time out of mind in South Wales / [James Jurin].

  • Jurin, James, 1684-1750
Date:
1723
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the learned Caleb Cotesworth ... Containing, a comparison between the mortality of the natural small pox, and that given by inoculation ... To which is subjoined, an account of the success of inoculation in New England; as likewise an extract from several letters concerning a like method of communicating the small pox, that has been used time out of mind in South Wales / [James Jurin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/32 (page 6)
    ('* ) The Reverend Mr. Mather, in a Letter dared March io. 1711. from Bofton in Mew England, gives an Account, That of near 300 inoculated there, 5 or 6 died upon it or after it, but from other cDifeafes and Ac¬ cidents, chiefly from having taken the Infe¬ ction in the common way by Injpiration, be¬ fore it could be given them in this way of Tranfplantation. . as we have done before, to avoid all oc- cafion ofdifpute, we allow 5 out of thefe 300 to have died of the Small Pox by Inoculation, notwithstanding what Mr. Mather has faid of their dying by other Accidents or Dif- eafes ; the hazard of Inoculation will thence be determin’d to be that of 1 in about 60. But here it mud be obferv’d, that by all the Accounts from New England, the Operators there appear not to have been lo cautious in the choice of their Subjects, as here in Eng¬ land. For Mr. Mather tells us, that the Perlons inoculated were young arid old, from 1 Tear to 70, weak andftrong; and by o- ther relations we are inform’d, that Women with Child, and others even in Childbed, un¬ derwent the Operation. Apparently the Greatnels of the Danger they were in, from the Infedion in the Natural Way, which then raged among them with the utmoft Fury, made them the more adventurous. We