During the course of many years practice of inoculating in the former usual method, I generally committed to writing the most remarkable occurrences to have recourse to. Among these, I had recorded some cases, which proved, that those who had suffered most, were in general such as have been kept warm, and nursed with the greatest tenderness and care. These facts disposed me to think of a cooler manner of treating the disease, and made me attentive to the reports of such a method having been practised in some parts of this country with great success, though too extravagant at first to deserve credit. The reports, however, of this practice still gained ground; and, upon the strictest inquiry, I found they were for the most part true, and that such who were treated in this way, passed through the distemper in a more favourable manner than my own patients, or those of the most able practitioners in the old method of inoculation; also that the inoculators in this new way, enjoined a stricter regimen as to diet, than I had hitherto thought necessary; and that they frequently brought their uninfected patients into the presence of those who had the disease, and inoculated them immediately with fluid matter, taken on the point of a lancet, and by a very slight puncture or incision; applying no dressing or covering afterwards. This way of performing the operation pleased me, as far as related to the slightness of the incision, and the use of fresh matter; for I had (in common with other inoculators) sometimes failed of infecting, by using a thread that had been kept too long in a phial: but the circumstance of bringing the person to be inoculated into the presence of one who had the small-pox, seemed hazardous, lest there might be an accumulation of infection.