Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/129

 opened a hospital for inoculation. In the winter of 1774 it was also prevalent, and great alarm was created from the fact that no less than three hundred, out of thirteen hundred and forty-four deaths which occurred in the city and liberties during the year, were occasioned by that disorder in the natural way. The chief of these were children of poor people, who could not afford the expense of inoculation, and were unable to procure proper persons to perform it. To remedy this "a society for inoculating the poor" was established, and eight of the principal physicians of the day volunteered to perform the operation, prepare them for it, and also to attend them at their own houses, free of expense. This was done extensively till the month of September, 1774, when the physicians of the city met together and agreed to inoculate no patients during the sitting of Congress "as several of the Northern and Southern delegates are understood not to have had that disorder." In 1776 Morgan tells us "the practice was very common in the Middle States," and it continued to he so till the introduction of vaccination. This took place in 1803, when a printed address was circulated, signed by fifty-seven practising physicians, headed by the venerable Redman, recommending vaccination, and very soon children generally were submitted to it.