Page:The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox - Benjamin Rush.djvu/30

 importance to enjoin a cautious and gradual return to the free use of an animal diet; and at the same time it will be necessary  to give our patients a dose or two of purging physic.

, Gentlemen, have I delivered to you a short history of the new method of inoculating for the small-pox. I am aware that prejudices are entertained against some parts of it by physicians of the most ancient name and character among us. I have witnessed the effects of the old and new methods of preparing the body upon many thousand patients, and I am satisfied not only from my own observations, but from the experience of gentlemen upon whose judgments I rely more than upon my own, that the new method is by far the safest and most successful. Added to this, I can assure my pupils, that I have never known a single instance of a patient, prepared and treated in the manner I have described, that ever had an abscess after the small-pox, or even such an inflammation or sore upon the arm as required the application of a poultice.