Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/128

 gentleman generously, at his own expense, printed a very large impression of the work, which was distributed in America. It was handsomely issued in a quarto form in 1759, was largely circulated in and about Philadelphia, and attracted much attention. In this work the operation is recommended at any season of the year, and at all ages, except in the very young and old. Merely weakly constitutions, and those tainted by some hereditary distemper, were not discouraged from being inoculated, but "on breeding women, no consideration whatever should tempt us to perform it, unless we can suppose an absolute certainty of their catching the disease in the common way." In the same year in which this pamphlet appeared, Dr. William Barnet, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, a gentleman very experienced in the matter, was invited to Philadelphia to inoculate for the smallpox, and opened a house for that purpose, the first private hospital of the kind in Pennsylvania, of which I find any mention. At this time, Dr. Redman, too, published "A Defence of Inoculation," recommending the practice to his fellow-citizens in the most affectionate language, which tended to bring it much more into esteem.

In January, 1773, smallpox again prevailed, and Dr.