Page:A Recommendation of Inoculation - John Morgan.djvu/9

, (so great is the power of even the most fatal habits, rooted prejudices and the authority of great names;) yet in after times, when the force of them were dispelled, the minds of men being cleared from the mist, which at first obscured them, became open to conviction, and, at this day, from the difference of treatment, few traces are left of the former mortal effects of the disease. Unspeakable are our obligations, therefore, to this great man, whose history and exact description of the symptoms of the natural small-pox with his method of cure, being founded on the immutable laws of nature, will endure thro' the lapse of time, bid defiance to the cavils of scepticism, and mock the weak attempts of impotent critics to injure or overturn it. The renowned Boerhaave, venerable for his great erudition and profound knowledge of the healing arts, after a laborious perusal of every thing written, in his time, on the subject, declares "there is nothing to be added to what Sydenham has delivered on the natural small-pox."

Notwithstanding all the advantages which we derive from the greatest skill in its treatment, it, nevertheless, is at all times, one of the most dangerous diseases that infests the body, when taken in the natural way. In the various expedients that have been devised to mitigate the severity of morbid affections, and to render those which are dangerous, mild and innocent, no invention, surely, (if it may be called an invention, and not rather the inspiration of Heaven itself in pity to