Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/17

Rh accidents should happen after it, that these effects are to be imputed to nature, to chance, to inoculation itself, but by no means to the particular method which has been followed?

Superficial observations may seem to strengthen this opinion. In looking over the accounts of inoculations performed in different times and countries, it appears, that much the same method has been pursued, both in happy and unfortunate cases; and even that the rules prescibed have been more closely attended to in the latter than in the former.

There is, nevertheless, a safe way of inoculating, and there are improper methods. By the one the disorder is attended with no danger while it lasts, nor any bad consequences when it is over. By the other, the patient is either exposed to a real danger, and a grievous illness, or may apprehend bad, and sometimes lasting, consequences after the termination of the disorder. There is a method by which thousands may be inoculated without the Ioss of any; and there are modes of acting by which the proportion, between those who die and those who escape, is considerable enough to startle the fond parent with regard to his children, and the courageous man with regard to himself.

The following facts will prove this assertion. In the little town of Blandford, 384 persons were inoculated; of whom thirteen died, a great number laboured under a confluent Rh