Different Modes of INOCULATION. The practice of inoculation having obtained in every part of the world, it may be grateful, at least to curiosity, to have a general account of the different modes that are and have been adopted in that practice.
Inoculation with the blood of various patients hath
been tried without effect; the various matter only produces the various disease.
The application of the various matter takes place in a sensible part only; the activity of the virus is such, that the smallest atom, though imperceptible to any of our senses, conveys the disease as well as the largest quantity. Hence the most obvious method is the prick of a needle or the point of a lancet dipped in the matter of a various pustule.
Cotton or thread is used, that is previously rubbed with powdered various scabs; this thread is drawn with a needle through the cutis, but not left in. This is the method in some parts of the East Indies. The Indians pass the thread on the outside of the hand, between any of the fingers, or between the fore finger and thumb. The Thessalian women inoculate in the forehead and chin.
Some abrade the scarf-skin, and rub in the powdered dry scabs which fall from the pustules of patients with the smallpox.
Many of the Greek women make an oblique puncture with a needle, on the middle of the top of the forehead, on each cheek, the chin, each metacarpus, and each metatarsus; then drop in each a little of the pus just taken warm from a patient, and brought in a servant's bosom. Others in Greece make several little wounds with a needle in one, two, or more places, in the skin, till some drops of blood ensue; then the operator pours a drop of warm pus fresh from a pustule, and mixes it with the blood as it issues out; then the wound is covered by some with a bandage, by others with half a walnut shell placed with its concave side over each orifice.
The Chinese convey a pellet of variolated cotton, with the addition of a little musk, into the nostrils of the patient; they collect dry pustules, and keep them in a porcelain bottle well corked; and when they inoculate, they mix a grain of musk with three or four grains of the dry scales, and roll them in cotton. This method may be called inodoratum.
About Bengal, in the East Indies, the person who intends to be inoculated, having found a house where there is a good sort of the smallpox, goes to the bed of the sick person, if he is old enough; or if a child, to one of his relations, and speaks to him as follows: "I am come to buy the smallpox." The answer is, "Buy if you please." A sum of money is accordingly given, and one, three, or four pustules, for the number must always be odd, and not exceeding five, extracted whole, and full of matter. These are immediately rubbed on the skin of the outside of the hand between the forefinger and the thumb; and this suffices to produce the disease. The same custom obtains in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and other countries.
Very similar to the custom among the people about Bengal, &c. is that in Arabia, where on some fleshy part they make several punctures with a needle imbrued in various matter, taken from a pustule of a favourable kind. Here they buy the smallpox too, as follows: the child to be inoculated carries a few raisins, dates, sugar-plums, or such like; and showing them to the child from whom the matter is to be taken, asks how many pocks he will give in exchange? The bargain being made, they proceed to the operation; but this buying, though still continued, is not thought necessary.
Inoculation. necessary to the success of the operation. The Arabs say that any fleshy part is proper; but generally they insert the matter between the fore-finger and thumb on the outside of the arm.
The Georgians insert the matter on the fore-arm.
The Armenians introduce the matter on the two thighs. In Wales the practice may be termed infraction of the smallpox. There some of the dry pustules are procured by purchase, and are rubbed hard upon the naked arm or leg.
The practice in some places is to prick the skin between some of the fingers by means of two small needles joined to one another; and after having rubbed a little of the matter on the spot, a circle is made by means of several punctures of the bigness of a common pustule, and matter is again rubbed over it. The operation is finished by dressing the wound with lint.—Another custom is to mix a little of the variolous matter with sugar, and give it to be drank in any agreeable liquor.
Incisions have been made in the arms and legs, and thread, cotton, or lint, previously dipped in the variolous matter, was lodged in them. The practice of some is to bathe the feet in warm water, and then secure lint dipped in the variolous matter on the instep, or other part of the foot, where the skin is thin. Others apply a small blistering plaster; and when the scarf skin is elevated and slipped off, the variolous matter is applied to the surface of the true skin, and confined there by a little lint or plaster. Scratching the skin with a pin or needle, and then rubbing the part with lint, previously dipped in variolous matter, is the custom in some places.
In the Highlands of Scotland they rub some part of the skin with fresh matter, or dip worsted in variolous matter, and tie it about the children's wrists. They observe, that if fresh matter is applied a few days successively, the infection is more certain than by one application.
We have thus given the history of inoculation for the smallpox, which not many years ago was justly regarded as one of the greatest discoveries which had been made for the benefit of mankind, and would still be regarded as such had it not given place to one still more valuable and important, the vaccine inoculation or cowpox, which now promises to banish the smallpox from the world. For an account of this, see VACCINATION. It would be quite unnecessary to enter into the detail of the advantages to be derived from inoculation for the smallpox, and the methods of performing or preparing for it formerly practised. But, as a curious part of the history of this practice, we shall just barely mention some of the objections which have been urged against it.
It has been said that inoculation for the smallpox is unlawful; that it is bringing a distemper on ourselves, and thus usurping the sacred prerogative of God; that the decrees of God have fixed the commission of every disease, and our precautions cannot prevent what he hath determined; that we should not do evil that good may come; that the patient may die, and then his last moments are distressed, and the future reflections of his friends are grievous; that fear is a dangerous passion in the smallpox, but inoculation increases the causes of fear, by lessening our faith and trust in God; that inoculation does not exempt from future infection; that other diseases are communicated with the matter of the smallpox by inoculating it; that perhaps the disease may never attack in the natural way; that it requires much thought to know what we should do with regard to inoculation; that it endangers others, and that the practice of inoculation comes from the devil.