no Seeds of the Small-Pox, and then they cannot always deliver the Patient from being afterwards infected with the true Kind.
As to the Production of the mild Kind only, and the Certainty of Recovery in all Instances, where this Operation is performed, that Point, it is certain, must be given up; for notwithstanding the Undertakers positively affirm, that by this Practice the Confluent or Dangerous Sort is never propagated, it is past all Contradiction that sometimes the Event has been otherwise, and Examples of this are so well known, that I forbear to set them down.
It is in vain to give this Matter another more favourable Turn for the Operators, by saying, the Patient was of a weakly Constitution, and full of ill Humours, or that he was of a froward and perverse Temper, and died by a Fit of Peevishness, or that he was carried off by terrible Convulsions, and not by the Small-Pox; for Men of the least Sagacity must see thro’ these ridiculous Evasions invented to cover true History and defeat our Inquiry into Matter of Fact, and to buttress up the Reputation of the Inoculators. Let it be supposed, that the Person is of a weakly Constitution, and that he labours too under some other Diseases or Indispositions, why would the Operator undertake to procure in such a Person this Distemper? why would he not chuse to set him by, and tell his Relations that by Reason of his unhealthful
