Page:An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ - 1798.djvu/86

 practicability of its being given in this way; although it has been proved that variolous matter when much diluted with water, and applied to the skin in the usual manner, will produce the disease. But it would be digressing beyond a proper boundary, to go minutely into this subject here.

At what period the Cow-pox was first noticed here is not upon record. Our oldest farmers were not unacquainted with it in their earliest days, when it appeared among their farms without any deviation from the phænomena which it now exhibits. Its connection with the Small-pox seems to have been unknown to them. Probably the general introduction of inoculation first occasioned the discovery. Its