Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/78

64 Easy it certainly is, since a woman, a mother, a nurse, can practice it as well as the best physician. Who is a better judge than the mother, of her child's health? who more dexterous in performing the operation? who less likely to frighten the child, or more fit to divert it?

How convenient must that method be, which requires no confinement either before or after the disorder, if a slight indisposition can be called so, which lasts but three or four days at most, and requires no assistance from art, no operator, no expence?

Lastly, it is safe, both as it has been constantly successful, when and wherever practised, and as the few miscarriages of inoculation have been owing to a deviation from it.

Other methods have been invented. These were the result of much thinking; they require no small degree of attention and sagacity to comprehend them, can only be practised by skilful persons, are tedious, and require much care and patience; they not unfrequently render the distemper severe, or even mortal, add other needless disorders to the small-pox, and often leave troublesome, and sometimes dangerous, remains.

From this comparison between a simple, easy, and safe method, with those complicated, difficult, and unsafe practices, who can hesitate upon the choice?

Rh