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 LanguageDimsdale, Thomas
History
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
Dimsdale, Thomas
Smallpox -- Vaccination -- Early works to 1800
Country people who are obliged to come to town to transact their
business, and others who bring their families to visit relations, or to
entertain them with the pleasures of the town, are generally under
dreadful apprehensions of the Small Pox; how would their fears and
danger be increased, if the poor were continually under inoculation?
Another thoughtless, but most useful race of men, are well entitled to
our best endeavours for the preservation of their healths and lives: I
mean, sailors and sea-faring men, of our own and other countries; it is
well known that our shores, on both sides of the river, are continually
crouded with these, during their stay in this country.
Many of them have not had the Small Pox, and their mode of living is the
reverse of due preparation; if Inoculation should be practised in the
houses of the poor, it cannot be doubted that many of these would catch
this distemper?
Is it possible to reflect without horror on the situation of such of
those unhappy fellows, who should fall ill of the Small Pox in the
miserable lodgings they usually inhabit, perhaps without a friend to
take the least care of them? or of the still more calamitous state of
others, who being infected on shore should fall sick at sea, where
neither medicine nor proper attendance can be had, and carry likewise
with them in their unwashed cloaths, the fatal distemper into distant
climates?
I have been informed, that a child who had received the infection was
taken on board an East Indiaman many years ago. The disease was violent;
the linen, &c. were put into a box, and carried to the Cape of Good
Hope: it was sent on shore; the Small Pox immediately broke out in the
place, and carried off vast numbers of the inhabitants.
In the foregoing pages, some of the objections to partial Inoculations
of the poor in this city have been stated; but the possibility of
extending the practice to any good purpose, even if those objections
were removed, has not been taken notice of: to elucidate this point,
which is certainly a material one, the following remarks are submitted
to consideration.
The number of those who died of the Small Pox in each of the last four
years, on an average is 2544. To suppose that one dies out of every six
who have the natural distemper, will be allowed a moderate estimate: it
follows then, that the number of those who have passed through the
disease in each of the last four years will be 15,264. It will be
impossible to determine how many may remain uninfected; but if we
suppose that every year one out of eight who have not had the disease is
seized with it, the remaining number who have not had the Small Pox will
be 122,112; and it must be taken into account, that the annual recruits
by births will probably be about 20,000, besides others that are
continually arriving out of the country to seek employment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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