The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc.
History
The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc.
Literature and medicine; Physicians; Physicians in literature
"The Practice of bringing people out of the country into this town to
be inoculated for the Small-pox being very prejudicial to the town in
many respects, but especially to the Trade thereof, and as by this
practice the distemper may be continued much longer in the town than
it otherwise would, in all probability, it is thought proper by some
of the principal inhabitants and traders in the town, that this public
notice should be given that they are determined to prosecute any
person or persons whomsoever, that shall hereafter bring into this
town, or who shall receive into their houses in the town as lodgers,
any person or persons for that purpose, with the utmost severity that
the law will permit.... But that they might not be thought
discouragers of a practice so salutary and beneficial to mankind, as
inoculation is found to be, which encourages great numbers to go into
the practice, the persons who have caused this public notice to be
given have no objection to surgeons carrying on the practice in houses
properly situated for the purpose."
The "great numbers" of persons referred to in this notice as having "gone
into the practice" of inoculation for the small-pox appear to have been
chiefly old women, as in Turkey, and by some of these it was carried on
until the passing of the Vaccination Act in 1840. Five guineas was the fee
advertised in the _Ipswich Journal_ in 1761 for performing the operation
by Robert Sutton, an operator in Kent, who announced that he had "only met
with but one accident out of the many hundreds he has had under his cure."
The prevalence of this hideous disease in the last century, and the dread
which it inspired, is curiously attested by the frequency with which
advertisements for servants, etc., appeared in the newspapers, in which
there was an express stipulation that applicants must have had the
small-pox. A housemaid or footman whose face bore the traces of this
disease would not, at the present day, find their appearance much in their
favour: but the following selection of advertisements, culled from the
_Ipswich Journal_ and the _Salisbury and Winchester Journal_, show that in
the last century the marks would increase their chances of obtaining
employment very considerably. The dates range from 1755 to 1781, and such
announcements might be increased to any extent.
"A Three Years' APPRENTICE is wanted to use the Sea between
Manningtree and London, whose age is between 18 and 25 years, and has
had the Small-pox. Such a one, inquiring of MR. WM. LEACH, at Mistley
Thorne, in Essex, will hear of good encouragement."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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