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A Dissertation

lignant and pernicious Nature. It is plain then that the safe and Distinct Kind, far exceeding in Number the dangerous and Confluent, shews that the Materials of the Small-Pox are at first gentle and benign, and continue so till corrupted and depraved by the impure Humours it from Time meets and unites within the Body, by which unhappy Confederacy it becomes dangerous, and often destructive. Now let it be granted, that the Inoculation performed on Children, prevents the Danger of having a bad Sort in riper Years, when many ill and putrefied Humours generated in the Blood after Childhood, might have produced, as it often does, the worst Sort, by adhering to, and combining with the Seeds of the Small-Pox, at first mild and favourable: Now, as I said, the same Difficulty recurs; for those ill Humours which will be generated and collected in riper Years, will unite or joyn themselves with the Principles, though not of the Small-Pox, yet of some other Disease, from which the Danger will by that Means be as great, as if the Patient had laboured under the Confluent Kind of the Small-Pox: So that it is very evident, that should it be granted, that a gentle and kindly Disease will be always the Consequence of Inoculation in young Persons; yet since afterwards many putred and noxious Humours may be produced in the Blood, which it is allowed would have rendred the Small-Pox putred and malignant,

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