Parishes would likewise find their account in it: by a known moderate charge they would be released from the contingent great expence of maintaining many sick families, occasionally afflicted with the Small Pox in the natural way; oftentimes to the great injury of trade and manufactures: and this by a trifling advance to be bestowed but once during the life of an individual, who would be maintained about three weeks without any further expence, and return home to wear the cloaths they had bestowed on him.
Thus much I have thought necessary to state, from a moral certainty that some provision of this sort should be made; to proceed, would be entering into minute matters that would more properly belong to the governors, who will be best able to make such regulations as may be for the general benefit of the charity.
So much has already been said on general Inoculations in the country, that it seems unnecessary to enter on the subject again in this place. But such is the obstinacy of some parishes, and the parsimony of others, that it is impossible for the poor who are desirous of being inoculated, to persuade them to advance the small sum that would be necessary to defray the expence; and they are therefore obliged to wait the event of the natural disease, while the principal inhabitants are securing their own families by Inoculation.
Another unjustifiable piece of frugality that deserves attention and to be remedied is, that in many places where the whole number of poor have been inoculated at the expence of the parish, illiterate fellows, totally unacquainted with diseases or remedies, have been employed on account of cheapness only; when at the same time the families of the wealthy have been under the care of medical gentlemen of good reputation. To insert all the instances that might be produced of parochial meanness would be tedious; I shall mention the following only, which may be relied on as an indisputable truth. The inhabitants of a certain parish had a meeting to agree on inoculating all the poor; some medical gentlemen in the neighbourhood offered to undertake the business at a very low price; but as cheapness was the only object of consideration, the parish was about to agree with a blacksmith at eighteen pence a head, when one of the most frugal started this objection: It is very probable that under this man’s care we may have some die, and the expence of their burial may cost the parish so much, that it might be as well to agree with a better man. This objection was thus removed by the smith:—“Come, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you.—Give me half a crown a head, and them that die I will carry to the church-yard without putting the parish to any further expence.”
Thus to trifle with the lives of their indigent fellow creatures, must be an indelible reproach to any people. I know it will be said, that many instances can be produced, where whole parishes of poor have been inoculated, and have succeeded very well, under the care of persons who were totally unacquainted with medicine.
I will not here dispute the truth of this assertion; and indeed, if it was not an easy matter to procure more able help, it might be better to continue the practice in that way than to neglect inoculating entirely; but this is not the case. Gentlemen of the profession of good abilities will go very low in their price; and when it is considered that the sum is to be paid but once in the life of each person, surely parishes ought to be compelled to employ one who has had a medical education, and others should be restrained to their own proper business.
But it happens not unfrequently that irregular and dangerous symptoms appear, and at other times a different disease attacks the patient at the same time, with some unusual complaints while under Inoculation; these situations would certainly require the assistance of a person who could judge well of the symptoms, and distinguish the diseases properly, and know how to treat them, which a man unacquainted with the principles or the practice of physic could not pretend to, and consequently the patient would be exposed to great danger. Should an Act of Parliament be procured, it would be necessary to provide for the following circumstances.
That every parish (with the exception of such large places as should be thought too populous to be included) should be enjoined to offer Inoculation to all their poor who should be willing to admit of it[[6]]; that the patients and their families should be maintained during their illness; that the person employed to inoculate should have had some education in medicine as physician, surgeon, or apothecary; and that once in five years the same offer should be renewed, leaving the time of year and other circumstances to the option of the parish.
[6]. Vide Page 3, &c.