[CHAPTER IX.]
INOCULATION SUPERSEDED AND SUPPRESSED.
The illusory character of human testimony is graphically illustrated in the case of inoculation. Suppose an inquirer wished to ascertain the ratio of deaths to inoculations, he would be completely bewildered. We have seen what Dr. Buchan wrote—
In the natural way, one in four or five generally dies of smallpox; but by inoculation not one of a thousand. Nay, some can boast of having inoculated ten thousand without the loss of a single patient.
John Birch, an eminent London surgeon, said—
Not one in three hundred dies of inoculation in the general irregular mode of proceeding, and not one in a thousand among observant practitioners; and if the inoculated patient die, he dies of smallpox and of nothing but smallpox.[69]
In the Edinburgh Review, October, 1806, we read—
Of those who have smallpox naturally, one is found to die in six. Of inoculated patients, only one dies in two hundred and fifty. This at least is Dr. Willan’s calculation; and we are persuaded that it is very near the truth. In London, where it ought to be best ascertained, some eminent practitioners have stated the proportion to be so high as one in the hundred. The zealous anti-vaccinists have denied it to be greater, under judicious treatment, than one in a thousand. It cannot be denied, however, that besides the risk to life, the disease, even under the mitigated form, has frequently proved an exciting cause of scrofula and other dreadful distempers, and has often been attended with blindness and deformity.
In Reynolds’s System of Medicine, it is stated by Marson that—
The Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital was founded in London in 1746, and inoculation was continued there until 1822. Dr. Gregory went carefully over the records of the Hospital for that period of seventy-six years, and found that only three in a thousand died of inoculation. The inoculated disease was usually very mild, but not invariably so.