Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/120

 be valued one with another at £30 per head, the loss to the city in that article is near £2000." Nevertheless, inoculation met with much opposition. Between the autumn of 1736 and spring of 1737 smallpox was very rife, and "proved as mortal in the common way of infection as was ever known in these parts." It is reported that during its continuance only one hundred and twenty-nine persons underwent inoculation, of whom hut one, an infant, died; and that of the number inoculated "one was in the fifth or sixth month of her pregnancy, notwithstanding which she did well." Even Franklin at this time must have become doubtful of its benefits, for from his autobiography we learn that in this epidemic he lost a fine boy four years old by the disease taken in the common way, and that he afterwards greatly regretted not having given it to him by inoculation. Here, as elsewhere, the people were divided as to the propriety of inoculation, some contending warmly for its introduction, and others as strongly opposing it, looking upon the practice of "soliciting a distemper before nature was disposed to receive it as a tempting of Providence and a suggestion of the enemy of all righteousness," and asserting that the surgeons concealed or diminished the true number of deaths occasioned by it, at the same time that