Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/58

44 air. Some indeed went farther and asserted that the cooler the air, the better it is. They were induced to think so from some desperate cases in the small-pox, where the patient, thought to be dead, revived upon being exposed to the cold and open air, in the depth of winter.

The great success of inoculation in some parts of England, for these two or three last years, is by several eminent physicians ascribed chiefly to the courage of inoculators, who ventured farther than Sydenham himself; and the event seems to warrant even excess in this article; Of this the following fact, related by professor Monro, is a sufficient proof. One hundred and twelve persons were inoculated in the depth of winter, in some of the most northern islands of Scotland, where there was hardly fuel enough to dress victuals; several of the patients, during the whole course of the disorder, went out bare-footed upon the ice and snow, and not one of them died.

By quoting this instance of boldness, I do not pretend to advise the imitation of it; but this I dare affirm, with that assurance which intimate conviction alone can give, that every thing is to be feared from the heat of the air and little or nothing from cold; that a physician may safely have recourse even to excess of cold in a confluent and dangerous small-pox; and that many a one who dies of the natural disorder, after having been thoroughly nursed and covered up in bed in a hot and close room, would have escaped, had he been so lucky as Rh