iosity, and deserves further investigation.

When the inoculated small-pox is given under all the most favourable
circumstances I believe less than one in a thousand miscarry, which may be
ascribed to some unavoidable accident, such as the patient having
previously received the infection, or being about to be ill of some other
disease. Those which have lately miscarried under inoculation, as far as
has come to my knowledge, have been chiefly children at the breast; for in
these the habit of living in the air has been confirmed by so short a time,
that it is much easier destroyed, than when these habits of life have been
established by more frequent repetition. See Sect. XVII. 3. Thus it appears
from the bills of mortality kept in the great cities of London, Paris, and
Vienna, that out of every thousand children above three hundred and fifty
die under two years old. (Kirkpatrick on Inoculation.) Whence a strong
reason against our hazarding inoculation before that age is passed,
especially in crowded towns; except where the vicinity of the natural
contagion renders it necessary, or the convenience of inoculating a whole
family at a time; as it then becomes better to venture the less favourable
circumstances of the age of the patient, or the chance of the pain from
toothing, than to risk the infection in the natural way.

The most favourable method consists in, first, for a week before
inoculation, restraining the patients from all kinds of fermented or
spirituous liquor, and from animal food; and by giving them from one grain
to three or four of calomel every other day for three times. But if the
patients be in any the least danger of taking the natural infection, the
inoculation had better be immediately performed, and this abstinence then
began; and two or three gentle purges with calomel should be given, one
immediately, and on alternate days. These cathartics should not induce more
than two or three stools. I have seen two instances of a confluent
small-pox in inoculation following a violent purging induced by too large a
dose of calomel.

Secondly, the matter used for inoculation should be in a small quantity,
and warm, and fluid. Hence it is best when it can be recently taken from a
patient in the disease; or otherwise it may be diluted with part of a drop
of warm water, since its fluidity is likely to occasion its immediate
absorption; and the wound should be made as small and superficial as
possible, as otherwise