[3]. “It appears, by a report of the Hospital for the Indigent Blind, that two-thirds of those who apply for relief, have lost their sight by Small Pox,”—Sir G. Blane on Vaccination, p. 9.
Instances, wherein the beauty of the human countenance has been materially injured by the occurrence of Small Pox in the early stages of life, are now happily much more rare than formerly, especially in the higher ranks of society, and I trust will, in the course of another age, become entirely unknown. There are few of us, however, who are not still acquainted with some, and who cannot recall many more: and we every now and then meet with cases of blindness, which had succeeded to this formidable disease. I have myself had opportunities of seeing several such instances; and it is but a few weeks since my opinion was asked respecting a child, who was recovering from the Small Pox in its worst form, with a countenance dreadfully disfigured, and one eye entirely destroyed.[[4]]
[4]. Since this was written, I have been consulted on account of a little girl, of seven years of age, who has just sustained the same very serious deprivation, in consequence of an attack of Small Pox.
That a disease so destructive of human life, and which frequently entailed on the living such indelible proofs of its severity, should have been anticipated with peculiar feelings of dread and apprehension we can well believe, and it was natural that any method, which afforded a probability of diminishing its danger, and of rendering its attacks of a milder character, should excite no ordinary degree of public attention.
How far these ends were accomplished by the artificial communication of Small Pox by inoculation, we shall now proceed to inquire.