What we have to say of London smallpox during last century is, that prevalent as it was, our wonder is that it was not more prevalent; that the disease was bred in the circumstances and habits of the citizens; and that if it were possible to reproduce the same conditions, we should reproduce the same smallpox. On the contrary, say our valiant vaccinators, the same conditions might be reproduced, but if the citizens were universally and efficiently vaccinated and re-vaccinated, there would be no smallpox. Thus we are taught that people may eat and drink as they like, live in darkness, neglect personal cleanliness, take little exercise, breathe air polluted by respiration, filth, and putrefaction, and that whatever disease overtakes them, they will be proof against smallpox. The promise is deceptive, but it was the promise of the inoculator, and it is the promise of the vaccinator; and Dr. Drysdale, describes the practice which warrants the promise as “the greatest triumph of hygienic science--I repeat, by far the greatest triumph of positive hygienic science ever made.”[78] Some share in the fatality of 18th century smallpox must be charged to the treatment of the disease. What was described as the cool regimen was no secret, yet its practice appears to have been limited to few; whilst with the multitude, patients were confined to close and heated rooms, under heavy bed-clothes, plied with hot drinks, cordials, and alcohol, and kept in foul linen until killed or cured. Frequently, when symptoms of smallpox appeared, bleeding, blistering, and purging were energetically resorted to. If a family of children were affected, they were commonly stowed away in one bed, and their skins would stick together with pus and sweat. It was much the same in hospitals and workhouses. “I have seen above forty children,” says Dr. Buchan, “cooped up in one apartment, all the while they had this disease, without any of them being admitted to breathe the fresh air.” The same course was pursued with other fevers, and the effluvia of the sick-room was overpowering. Take this instance from Jenner’s own household. His nephew, Henry, and a maid-servant, were seized with typhus, and Jenner wrote-- The stench from the poor girl is so great as to fill the house with putrid vapour; and I shall remove Henry this morning, by means of a sedan chair, to an adjacent cottage.[79]