t here, as out of Italy and France; but
it does so little mischief, they are not very solicitous about it,
and are content to suffer this distemper, instead of our variety,
which they are utterly unacquainted with.

_A propos_ of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that will
make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal, and so general
amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of
_ingrafting_, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old
women, who make it their business to perform the operation, every
autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated.
People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind
to have the small-pox: they make parties for this purpose, and when
they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the old woman
comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of
small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She
immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle,
(which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into
the vein as much matter as can ly upon the head of her needle, and
after that, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and
in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly
the superstition of opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in
each arm, and one on the breast, to mark the sign of the cross; but
this has a very ill effect, all these wounds leaving little scars,
and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who chuse to
have them in the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed.
The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day,
and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to
seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three.
They have very rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which
never mark; and in eight days time they are as well as before their
illness. Where they are wounded, there remain running sores during
the distemper, which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every
year thousands undergo this operation; and the French ambassador says
pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as
they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any
one that has died in it; and you may believe I am well satisfied of
the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear
little son. I am patriot enou