A licence or exclusive permission ought to be granted to such physicians or surgeons as undertake to inoculate for the Small Pox; for the mischief arising from the practice of inoculation by the illiterate and ignorant is beyond conception[1]. Such persons, instead of confining the infection within narrow limits, too often, through want of skill or honesty, are the means of propagating it, to the great terror of many people, the fatal consequences of which, and the destructive tokens, remain in many places in England. For besides the dreadful mortality which the disease itself has occasioned, it has often proved the source of discord and contention among neighbours, and disturbed that harmony and friendship which had before subsisted among the inhabitants. ----- Footnote 1: To enumerate the instances that have happened within my own knowledge to confirm this assertion, would be almost endless; I shall only mention a few that are remarkable. I was desired to visit a young woman about ten miles distant; I found her dying from the inoculation of a man, who, upon the credit of having been my coachman, had set up inoculator: he was gone on the pretence of procuring my assistance, but in fact had ran away; this was his thirteenth patient. Another illiterate person in my neighbourhood began the practice; but a child he had inoculated happening to have a fit, he was so frighted as to elope till he was informed that his patient was out of danger. I received a letter from a poor man who kept a school about eight miles from Hertford, to inform me, that not being able to pay a proper person, he had ventured to inoculate his own family himself, and begging a visit on account of one of his children who he feared was in danger: I complied with his request, and found one child dying of a confluent pock; but my compassion abated, on finding his house filled with some poor neighbours from whom he received a small gratuity for their inoculation, one of which had lost an eye under his care. This man’s residence was in a small town, and from his patients several caught the Small Pox, and some died. I saw a poor woman dying of a confluent disease; her husband had raised money for his own inoculation, and having had the disease favourably, was assured by a farmer who inoculated him, that he might safely go home to his family. The wife died, leaving five children, who all had the disease and recovered. At a village not far from Hertford, the same farmer inoculated as many of the parish as could raise five shillings and three-pence, informing the others that the Small Pox was not catching from the inoculated; but the whole neighbourhood became infected, and several died. -----