Page:The New-England Courant - Nos 001.djvu/1

 [No 1.

t's a hard Case, that a Man can't appear in Print now a Days, unless he'll undergo the Mortification of Answering to ten thousand senseless and Impertinent questions like these, Pray Sir, from whence came you? And What Age may you be of, may I be so bold? Was you bied at Colledge Sir? And can you (like some of them) square the Circle, and cypher as far as the ''Black Art? &c. Now, tho' I must confess it's something irksome to a Man in hast, thus to be stop'd at his first setting-out, yet in Compliance to the Custom of the Country where I now set up for an Author, I'll immediately stop short, and give my gentle Reader some Account of my person and my rare Endowments.''

As for my Age, I'm some odd Years and a few Days under twice twenty and three, therefore I hope no One will hereafter object against my soaring now and then with the grave Wits of the Age, since I have dropt my callow feathers, and am pretty well fledg'd: but if they should tell me that I am not yet fit nor worthy to keep Company with such Illustrious Sages, for my Beard do'sn't yet reach down to my Girdle, I shall make them no other Answer than this, Barba non facit Philosophum.

I make no question my gentle Readers, but that you're very Impatient to see me entirely dissected, and to have a full View of my outward as well as inward Man, but as I stopt short just now, merely to oblige you, so I shall stop as short here, and give no farther Account of my self until this Day fortnight, when you shall have a farther Account of this useful Design, and of my great endowments of Body and Mind.

And to engage the Word to converse farther with me, they'l find me in the good Company of a certain set of men, of whom I hope to give a very good Account,

Who like faithful Shepherds take care of their Flocks, By teaching and practising what's Orthodox, Pray hard against Sickness, yet preach up the  X!

N. B. This Paper will be published once a Fortnight, and out of mere Kindness to my Brother-Writers, I intend now and then to be (like them) very, very dull; for I have a strong Fancy, that unless I am sometimes flat and low this Paper will not be very grateful to them.

At the Request of several Gentlemen in Town: A Continuation of the History of Inoculation in Boston, by a Society of the Practitioners in Physick.

He bold undertaker of the Practice of the Greek old Women, notwithstanding the Terror and Confusion from his Son's Inoculation-Fever, proceeds to inoculate Persons from Seventy Years of Age and downwards.

The Select Men (or Managers of the Town Affairs) in duty bound to take Cognizance of the Matter, desire a Meeting of all the Practitioners in Town, to have their Opinion whether the Practice ought to be allowed or not; they Unanimously agreed that it was rash and dubious, being entirely new, not in the least vouched or recommended (being merely published, in the Philosophick Transactions by way of Amusement) from Britain, tho' it came to us via London from the Turks, and by a strong viva voce Evidence, was proved to be of fatal & dangerous Consequence. Bn is desired by the Select Men to desist.

Notwithstanding the general Aversion of the Town, in Contradiction to the declared Opinion of the Practitioners, in Opposition to the Selectmen, and in Spite of the discouraging Evidences relating to this Practice, Six Gentlemen of Piety and Learning, profoundly ignorant of the Matter, after serious Consideration of a Disease, one of the most intricate practical Cases in Physick, do on the Merits of their Characters, and for no other reason, with a Vox præteriaq; nihil, assert, &c. If This Argument, viz. their Characters, should prevail with the Populace (tho' here I think they have missed of their Aim) who knows but it may oblige some profane Person to canvas that sort of Argument. I think their Character ought to be sacred, and that they themselves ought not give the least Occasion to have it called in question. They set up for Judges of a Man's Qualifications in the Practice of Physick and very lavishly bestow all the fulsome common Place of Quack Advertisements. One would think they meant some Romantick Character, something beyond that of candid Sydenham, the sagacious Radcliff, or the celebrated Mead: they might indeed in respect of his moral and religious Qualifications, which lay properly under their Cognizance, have said, that he was a modest, humble Man of Continency, Probity, &c.

At first reading of this Composure, many were persuaded, that it was only a piece of Humour, Banter, Burlesque,