An account of the preparation and management necessary to inoculation / [James Burges].

  • Burges, James, 1687-1771.
Date:
1754
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the preparation and management necessary to inoculation / [James Burges]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/54 (page 10)
    [IO ] their patients as much as they could from that ft ate, which they had experienced to prove fo dangerous ; thinking they could hardly reduce them enough, to venture on trufting them to the diftemper, never confidering that by weakening the habit too much, they robbed nature of the ftrength that was necef- fary to clear the conftitution of the infectious mat¬ ter, and to produce the proper crifis of the difeafe ; the confequence of which has been either a feverer degree of the fmall-pox, or elfe feme chronical diferder * when the matter not being properly dis¬ charged on the fkin, has returned back on the ha¬ bit, and lodged in the cellular membrane, or flopped in the vafcular folds of the glands, where it has produced invincible obftruClions. On the other hand, feme have reprefented all preparation as idle, formal, and unneceffary, pro¬ bably to inhance the merit of the practice ; but this is rather more abfurd than the other, as it is throwing away thofe advantages, that the praClice is fuppofed to procure, by giving us fuch previous notice of the accefs of the diftemper. This is in¬ deed cafting away our fhield at the approach of the enemy : the hazard of the approaching fever will certainly be lefs, if the body is in a cool and tem¬ perate habit, the bowels unloaded, and the fkin in a perfpirable (late ; thofe that affeCl to explode the neceffity of preparation, muft be either grofly ig¬ norant, or obftinate, to deny this , and fuch it is not worth while to confute. In very lax habits, fuch as children, and deli¬ cate young women, the hazard is lefs, as fuch con- ftitutions