Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/140

This page has been validated.
112
A Dissertation

fore must together with them be communicated to the Veins of the Person inoculated; for the Effluvia, or infectious Particles, that flow from the Body of the sick Person are very little, even unperceptible, and cannot admit those Combinations with the Seeds of other Distempers, as before-mentioned; or if they can, it must be in a far inferior Degree than that which the inoculated Matter is capable of; neither is it, as that is, conveyed immediately into the Blood by a Wound made for that Purpose, which must needs communicate them in greater Plenty.

I have thus set down the Objections and reasonable Prejudices, which I have conceived against Inoculation; and it is very probable, that for some of these Reasons, among others, the Inoculators who practise upon the Greeks and Armenians in Constantinople, have not yet propagated their Art among the Musselmans; for, as I am informed, this Invention does not obtain among the Native Turks, but is confined to the Nations before-mentioned, who inhabit with them; and tho’ from a Principle of Predestination they forbear the Use of Medicines, or other Preservatives while the Plague reigns, yet, notwithstanding that Principle, they have Recourse to Remedies in other Distempers acute and chronical; and probably then in the Small-Pox: And from such Exceptions it is likely, that the

Christian