Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/42

28 days after it was made, it is a sure sign of efficacy; and the succeeding pustules, having all the characteristics of the true small-pox, can leave no doubt of a genuine infection.

Thus have I summed up the chief disadvantages we meet with in practice. They have hitherto been placed to the account of inoculation but l am confident they are solely owing to the manner of performing it. When time, the great restorer of truth, brings us back to the good old method, we shall hear no more of them, and inoculation will be fully vindicated.

I am sensible that many objections will be made against this doctrine. The two principal ones deserving any answer are these:

"An insertion made by a puncture cannot make way for that copious outlet, which a wound affords to the variolous matter, and which constitutes the greatest benefit of inoculation."

I have in a former work declared my opinion as to the supposed benefit of an outlet, during the course of the distemper. I still think, that this whole doctrine is founded upon superficial notions of the animal œconomy, and a want of due attention to the phenomena of inoculation. Most physicians will, I believe, upon duly weighing my reasons, think, and, what is more, speak as I do.

Rh