Page:An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ - 1798.djvu/85

 yet I am induced to conceive that each of these parts is capable of producing some variation in the qualities of the matter previous to its affecting the constitution. What else can constitute the difference between the Small-pox when communicated casually or in what has been termed the natural way, or when brought on artificially through the medium of the skin? After all, are the variolous particles, possessing their true specific and contagious principles, ever taken up and conveyed by the lymphatics unchanged into the blood vessels? I imagine not. Were this the case, should we not find the blood sufficiently loaded with them in some stages of the Small-pox to communicate the disease by inserting it under the cuticle, or by spreading it on the surface of an ulcer? Yet experiments have determined the im-