[1032] Haygarth, Sketch of a Plan, &c., 1793, p. 32.
[1033] Gaol at Bury St Edmunds: In the winter of 1773, five died of the smallpox. No apothecary then. Leicester County Gaol: In 1774 three debtors and one felon died of the smallpox. “Of that disease, I was informed, few ever recover in this gaol.” Oxford Castle: In 1773 eleven died of the smallpox. In 1774 that distemper still in the gaol. In 1775 one debtor died of it in May, three debtors and a petty offender in June; three recovered. No infirmary, no straw to lie on. State of the Prisons.
[1034] I append Haygarth’s full table of the Chester smallpox epidemic, 1774:
| Parish | Families | Persons | Recovd. from smallpox | Died of smallpox | Not had smallpox | |||||||
| Suburbs | { { | St Oswald | 924 | 4027 | 321 | 40 | 350 | |||||
| St John | 774 | 3187 | 284 | 52 | 218 | |||||||
| St Mary | 583 | 2392 | 240 | 45 | 205 | |||||||
| Trinity | 330 | 1605 | 127 | 24 | 97 | |||||||
| Old Parishes | { { { | St Peter | 193 | 920 | 52 | 6 | 39 | |||||
| St Bridget | 154 | 623 | 52 | 6 | 35 | |||||||
| St Martin | 154 | 611 | 47 | 18 | 35 | |||||||
| St Michael | 135 | 575 | 15 | 2 | 31 | |||||||
| St Olave | 134 | 536 | 42 | 8 | 43 | |||||||
| Cathedral | 47 | 237 | 3 | 1 | 7 | |||||||
| 3428 | 14713 | 1183 | 202 | 1060 | ||||||||
[1035] Isaac Massey, Remarks on Dr Jurin’s last yearly Account of the Success of Inoculation. Lond. 1727, p. 6. Huxham held that children might be “prepared” for the natural smallpox, as it was then the custom to prepare them for the inoculated disease, so that few of them need have it severely: “I am persuaded, if persons regularly prepared were to receive the variolous contagion in a natural way, far the greater part would have them in a mild manner.” On Fevers. 2nd ed. 1750, p. 133.
[1036] C. Deering, M.D., Account of an improved Method of treating the Smallpocks. Nottingham, 1737.
[1037] John Lamport alias Lampard, u. s.
[1038] Obs. on Ship Fever, &c. New ed. Lond. 1789, p. 448.
[1039] Thomas Phillips, “Journal of a Voyage,” &c. in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, VI. 173.
[1040] Berkeley’s claim for tar-water in smallpox was a double one, as a preventive or modifier, and as a cure. Of the former he says: “Another reason which recommends tar-water, particularly to infants and children, is the great security it brings against the smallpox to those that drink it, who are observed, either never to take that distemper, or to have it in the gentlest manner.” Further Thoughts on Tar-water, 1752. In his Second Letter to Thomas Prior, Esq. 1746 (in Works. 4 vols. Oxford, 1871, III. 476) he gives the famous case of curing by it:—“the wonderful fact attested by a solemn affidavit of Captain Drape at Liverpool, whereby it appears that, of 170 negroes seized at once by the smallpox on the coast of Guinea one only died, who refused to drink tar-water; and the remaining 169 all recovered, by drinking it, without any other medicine, notwithstanding the heat of the climate and the incommodities of the vessel. A fact so well vouched must, with all unbiassed men, outweigh, &c.”