ether 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 [spots] 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
smallpox 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 that I am well satisfied of the safety of this
experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son.

I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into
fashion in England; and I should not fail to write to some of our
doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I
thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of
their revenue for the good of mankind. But that distemper is too
beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment the hardy
wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if I live to
return, I may, however, have courage to war with them. Upon this
occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of your friend, etc., etc.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: Letter to Edward Wortley Montagu, written before she
married him. Lady Mary was married to Montagu on August 12, 1712. At
his first proposal to her, he had been rejected. Lady Mary's father
insisted that she should marry another man; the settlements for this
marriage had been drawn and the wedding day fixt, when Lady Mary left
her father's house and married Montagu privately. Montagu was a man of
some eminence in public life, but noted for miserly habits. He
accumulated one of the largest private estates of his time.]

[Footnote 15: Letter to Sarah Criswell, dated Adrianople, Turkey,
April 1, O. S., 1717. To Lady Mary is usually accorded chief credit
for the introduction of inoculation into western Europe.]

LORD CHESTERFIELD

Born in 1694, died in 1773; educated at Cambridge; became a
member of Parliament; filled several places in the
diplomatic service; became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in
1734; his "Letters to His Son," published in 1774 after his
death.

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