The time of menstruation has generally been the guide in respect to the inoculation of women; that the whole of the disease might be over within the menstrual period. This I commonly observe, when I can choose my time without any inconvenience, and inoculate soon after the evacuation ceases; though I have no reason to decline performing the operation at any time, as I can produce many examples in which no inconvenience has arisen, nor any difference been observable, when this circumstance has been disregarded. Women with child have likewise been inoculated, and done well; yet some particular emergency should be pleaded in excuse for it in their situation, as it may be attended with some hazard. I have not inoculated any woman whom I knew to be pregnant; but some who concealed their pregnancy have been inoculated by me, who, I fancy, hoped for an event that did not happen, I mean miscarriages: one of these had a child born nine weeks after inoculation, at the full time, with distinct marks of the disease, though the mother had very few eruptions. Of INFECTION. The manner of communicating this distemper by inoculation in this country, has of late been the following: A thread is drawn through a ripe pustule, and well moistened with the matter: a piece of this thread is insinuated into a superficial incision made in one or both arms, near the part where issues are usually fixed; this thread is covered with a plaister, and there left for a day or two. This is the most usual way, though others have been practised by several in the profession. At present, very different methods are pursued; two of which, that vary in some respects, I have frequently practised, and shall describe; but the following has been so invariably successful, as to induce me to give it the preference. The patient to be infected being in the same house, and, if no objection is made to it, in the same room, with one who has the disease, a little of the variolous matter is taken from the place of insertion, if the subject is under inoculation; or a pustule, if in the natural way, on the point of a lancet, so that both sides of the point are moistened. With this lancet an incision is made in that part of the arm where issues are usually placed, deep enough to pass through the scarf skin, and just to touch the skin itself, and in length as short as possible, not more than one eighth of an inch. The little wound being then stretched open between the finger and thumb of the operator, the incision is moistened with the matter, by gently touching it with the flat side of the infested lancet. This operation is generally performed in both arms, and sometimes in two places in one arm, a little distance from each other. For as I have not observed any inconvenience from two or three incisions, I seldom trust to one; that neither I nor my patient may be under any doubt about the success of the operation from its being performed in one place only.