Notwithstanding [he wrote] the happy effects of Inoculation, with all the improvements the practice has received since its first introduction into this country, it not very unfrequently produces deformity of the skin, and sometimes, under the best management, proves fatal. (P. 57.) On the contrary, he said-- I have never known fatal effects arise from the Cowpox, even when impressed in the most unfavourable manner, producing extensive inflammations and suppurations on the hands; and as it clearly appears that this disease leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection of the Smallpox, may we not infer that a mode of Inoculation may be introduced preferable to that at present adopted, especially among those families, which, from previous circumstances, we may judge to be predisposed to have the disease unfavourably? Inoculation was freely charged with exciting scrofula; thus Jenner observed-- In constitutions predisposed to scrofula, how frequently we see the inoculated Smallpox rouse into activity that distressful malady; and the issue does not seem to depend on the manner of the inoculation, for it as often occurs in those who receive it mildly as in those who receive it severely. (P. 60.) Happily he had the grace to refrain from the explicit assertion that Cowpox was exempt from similar hazard; yet with characteristic inconsistency, was disposed to advance a claim for it as an expulsive irritant-- As we have seen [though he never showed] that the constitution may at any time be made to feel the febrile attack of Cowpox, might it not, in many chronic diseases, be introduced into the system, with the probability of affording relief, upon well-known physiological principles? (P. 60.)