The utmost caution ought to be used in the choice of proper matter to communicate the infection. It should be taken from a young subject, otherwise perfectly sound and healthful, who has the smallpox in the most favourable manner. When the pustules are properly maturated, and just upon the turn, or soon after, two or three of them should be ripped with a glover’s needle or small lancet, and a couple of small pledgets of lint or cotton are to be well moistened with the matter, and immediately put into a little vial or box, and carried in the warm hand or bosom of the operator to the house of the person to be inoculated.[44] The publication of these conditions was little short of a practical surrender, and the opponents of inoculation were not slow to avail themselves of the advantage. What had been proclaimed the easy and universal defence against smallpox proved hedged about with precautions and preparations for which only health with wealth was equal. Where was the profit, argued Francis Howgrave, of a practice which leaves the feeble and delicate and poor to their fate, which makes the well sick, and wounds those that are whole, whilst smallpox in the natural way very rarely affects life where the habit of body and constitution are good.[45] Isaac Massey was especially indignant over Jurin’s comparison of the mortality of smallpox with the mortality of inoculation. Jurin reckoned that out of every 100 who took smallpox, 20 died, whilst only 2 in 100 died from the effects of inoculation. “He forgets,” said Massey, “that the inoculated are picked lives. If this be fair, Hang fair!” Massey was right. It was absurd to institute a comparison between the common smallpox, comprising that of the poor and neglected, and the well-fed and carefully tended subjects of inoculation. Massey, too, was strong in his own experience, saying-- I have a list of the names of 32 children, who are all that have had the smallpox during the last two years [1727] in Christ’s Hospital, and every one recovered. I have had, besides, 17 or 18 more in my private business, of whom only one died. Here, then, we have 49 cases of natural smallpox and but 1 death.[46] Emphatic likewise was his protest against the exaggeration of the inoculators. A natural simple smallpox seldom kills, unless under very ill management, or when some lurking evil that was quiet before is roused in the fluids and confederated with the pocky ferment.[47] At this point we may see the judgment and the fears of the English people had gone against inoculation, and the practice appeared destined to gradual extinction. According to the inoculators, their work was thus summarised-- 182 inoculations in 1721 and ’22, with 3 deaths. 292 ” in 1723, with 6 deaths. 40 ” in 1724, with 1 death. Prince Frederick and Prince William were among the inoculated of 1724.