Such then were the data on which the practice of inoculation for Small Pox was established. But it will be remembered, that on its introduction, and for many years after it had been extensively used, it met with a very warm opposition both from medical men and others, especially from some zealous divines, who stigmatised it as “a diabolical invention of Satan,” and uttered anathemas against all who should practise it. I shall not enter into any examination of the arguments made use of by the opposers of inoculation; some of them have been already alluded to, and their fallacy pointed out. Taken altogether, it is remarkable how nearly they resembled those which have been opposed to the introduction of Vaccination. Now, that distance of time has enabled us to view the facts of the case with coolness, and to reason upon them without prejudice, while we admit the individual security which arose from the practice of inoculation, we must in candour confess its tendency to encrease the general destruction of life from Small Pox, by forming so many new sources of infection. This was the only rational argument against inoculation, but it was certainly one of great force, and the actual encrease of deaths from Small Pox during the prevalence of inoculation, seems to prove that it was never sufficiently considered. The encreased number of deaths from Small Pox in 1723 and 1725, might fairly be imputed to this cause, although it was denied at the time by Dr. Jurin. Mr. Moore (History of Small Pox, p. 243) very satisfactorily replies to Dr. Jurin’s argument in the following extract. “And as in the year 1723 a great increase of the mortality by Small Pox took place in London; Dr. Jurin expressed his opinion that this ought not be imputed to inoculation, as the numbers who had been inoculated did not exceed sixty. This was a very inadequate answer. A single person may bring the plague into a town or into a nation, and be the cause of the destruction of an innumerable multitude. The Small Pox is fully as infectious a disease as the plague; and sixty inoculations were more than sufficient to account for the augmented mortality, and were probably the cause of it.”