THOUGHTS ON GENERAL AND PARTIAL INOCULATIONS. CONTAINING A Translation of Two Treatises written when the Author was at Petersburg, and published there, by Command of her Imperial Majesty, in the Russian Language. ALSO OUTLINES OF TWO PLANS: One, for the general Inoculation of the Poor in small Towns and Villages. The other, for the general Inoculation of the Poor in London, and other large and populous Places. BY THE HONOURABLE BARON THOMAS DIMSDALE, First Physician and Actual Counsellor of State to her Imperial Majesty the Empress of all the Russias, and F. R. S. LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM RICHARDSON; For W. OWEN, in Fleet-street; and T. CARNAN and F. NEWBERY jun. Nᵒ 65, in St. Paul’s Church-yard. M. DCC. LXXVI. [Price One Shilling and Six Pence.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO THE LEGISLATURE OF GREAT BRITAIN, THESE TRACTS, ON A SUBJECT EXTREMELY INTERESTING TO THE COMMUNITY, ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY ADDRESSED BY THE AUTHOR. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION. To preserve the lives and health of the inferior part of mankind has been an object carefully attended to in all civilized and well regulated states, not only from motives of compassion, but because it has been plainly demonstrated that it is the interest of the wealthy in every nation to encourage population, and provide for the wants of the poor. One would indeed, on the first thought presume, that the unavoidable necessities of the indigent would be voluntarily relieved out of the abundance of their opulent neighbours; but the number of laws that have been made for the provision of the poor, are proofs of the futility of this expectation, and the necessity of compulsion. Among the many objects that have been provided for, it seems matter of astonishment that no one has ever pointed out the Small Pox as a distemper, whose destructive consequences might be in great measure prevented by the interposition of Legislature, and the assistance that would be certainly afforded from private charity.