So much might have been stated and prognosticated in 1728: how the prognostic failed to be verified remains to be told.
[40] _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 375, 1723.
[41] _An Account of Inoculation in Scotland._ By A. Monro. Edin., 1765.
[42] _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 370, 1722.
[43] Letter from Dr. Nettleton to Dr. Jurin, dated Halifax, 16th June, 1722.
[44] _An Account of the Success of Inoculating the Smallpox in Great Britain._ By James Jurin, M.D.
[45] _Reasons Against the Inoculation of the Smallpox._ By Francis Howgrave, Apothecary. London, 1724.
[46] _Remarks on Dr. Jurin’s Last Yearly Account of the Success of Inoculation._ By Isaac Massey. London, 1727.
[48] _An Account of the Success of Inoculating the Smallpox in Great Britain._ By John Gasper Scheuchzer, M.D. London, 1729.
[49] _Danger and Uncertainty of Inoculating the Smallpox_, p. 64.
The practice of inoculation, thus discredited, revived, and not only revived, but prevailed. The revival was gradual, and may be said to have acquired definition about 1748, under the powerful approval of Dr. Mead. In the score of years from 1728 to 1748, it is not to be imagined that the practice was abandoned: there were always a few repeating the attempt to have smallpox without the penalties of smallpox, but success was not conspicuous or encouraging. Inoculation was introduced to a generation specially disposed to receive it; and it was only allowed to slip for a time under the compulsion of manifest disaster. Perhaps there never was a people with such a taste for dodges in favour of health as the English of last century: the common intelligence was invested in quackery. Even Wesley found time to dabble in medicine, and to compile a volume of prescriptions for his followers, entitled _Primitive Physic_--a piquant mixture of sense with absurdity and credulity. Our forefathers had no clear conception of the connection of physical well-being with physical well-doing, and many of the essential conditions of health were unknown to them. Their physical afflictions were regarded as mysterious dispensations to be endured with resignation or frustrated with medicines. The same attitude of mind is far from uncommon at the present day, and many will recollect how, ere sanitary science attained repute, it was considered profane to assert that typhus was subject to control, and that cholera might be suppressed; whilst a drug to subdue either would be heard of with gratitude. Superstition has rarely had any objection to the apothecary.