Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/74

60 This indeed is not our present object; and it may suffice for our purpose to conclude, that whoever has one pock is in the same case with one that has a full crop; each has had his share; and if the disorder can attack the same subject but once, both will for ever remain equally free.

But notwithstanding the obviousness of this truth, many people, accustomed to judge more from their own argumentations than from facts, will hardly be brought to believe that one pustule has the same effect as ten thousand. Though approves of inoculation in general, the bulk of mankind will be afraid of a copious eruption, and uneasy after a sparing one.

In order to satisfy these, it were to be wished, that inoculation could be so managed as to procure an eruption sufficient to remove all apprehensions of a return, and yet so moderate as not to endanger the patient.

The rules, which I have laid down, are intended to lessen the number of pustules; those which I have been opposing, tend to increase it. If two subjects presented themselves alike in health and disposition, I am apt to think might engage to give the one but few pustules, perhaps but one, and to the other a very full crop, if not a confluent small-pox.

In order to produce an eruption neither too small nor too great, a middle course should be steered between the two methods. But it is no easy matter to find out this middle way; nor Rh