The History of the Small Pox

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815 - Smallpox - 312 pages
Moore follows the history of the disease from its first recorded appearance in Asia and Africa to Arabia and finally to Europe and America. he then provides a history of treatment, including three chapters on the discovery and reception of inoculation. Moore was an early advocate of vaccination, and this book is dedicated to Edward Jenner. In 1810 Moore was appointed director of the National Vaccine Establishment.

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Page 49 - HAST thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the masters of the elephant? Did he not make their treacherous design an occasion of drawing them into error; and send against them flocks of birds, which cast down upon them stones of baked clay; and render them like the leaves of corn eaten by cattle?
Page 221 - But whatever part was fixed upon, was well rubbed with a piece of cloth, which afterwards became a perquisite of the brahmin ; he then made a few slight scratches on the skin with a sharp instrument, and took a bit of cotton, which had been soaked the preceding year in variolous matter, moistened it with a drop or two of the holy water of the Ganges, and bound it upon the punctures. During the whole of this ceremony, the brahmin always preserved a solemn countenance, and recited the prayers appointed...
Page 301 - But this immense and increasing consumption of human lives, was not the sole evil produced by this distemper ; for a considerable portion of the survivors were pitted and disfigured ; some lost one of their eyes, a few became totally blind, and others had their constitution impaired, and predisposed to a variety of complaints, which were productive of future distress, and sometimes of death.
Page 247 - Greek old women : a physician and surgeon also began in the year 1 738 to inoculate in South Carolina; and only lost eight persons out of eight hundred. But a planter in St. Christopher's inoculated three hundred persons without the loss of one. For it is singular that in those days all inoculations performed by private gentlemen, monks, and old women, were uniformly successful ; and empirics afterwards were equally fortunate : none lost patients from inoculation except the regular members of the...
Page 219 - ... them in the nose. A bit of musk was added, in order to correct the virulence of the poison, and perhaps to perfume the crusts, and the whole was wrapped up in a little cotton to prevent its dropping out of the nostril. The crusts employed were always taken from a healthy person who had the small-pox favourably ; and with the vain hope of mitigating their acrimony, they were sometimes kept in close jars for years, and at other times were fumigated with salutary plants. Some physicians beat the...
Page 220 - Hindostan, if tradition may be relied on, inoculation itself has been practised from remote antiquity. This practice was in the hands of a particular tribe of brahmins, who were delegated from various religious colleges, and who travelled through the provinces for that purpose. The natives were strictly enjoined to abstain during a month preparatory to the operation from milk and butter; and when the Arabians and Portugueze appeared in that country, they were prohibited from taking animal food also.
Page 64 - ... who, in less than half a century, had established their dominion not only over Egypt and Syria, but a great part of Persia also. The contagion, however, was long prevented from finding its way into Europe, by the successful stand which the inhabitants of Constantinople made against the invaders. ' Thus the Mahometan Empire was bounded by the Hellespont, and that entrance for the small-pox into Europe barred up.
Page 77 - ... landing of an army of Moors in Gibraltar and Spain, conducted by Julian, in order to revenge the outrage committed by Roderick on his daughter, is said to have been the means of introducing the disease in question into this quarter of the world. ' By this invasion,' says Mr. Moore, ' the small-pox must have been brought into Spain, and the victorious Saracens soon reached the Pyrenees. In the year 731, Abderame crossed these mountains, and inundated the southern provinces of France with an host...
Page 22 - ... unknown in the very early ages, and did not appear till the dynasty of Tcheou, which was about 1122 years before Christ. The Chinese name for the malady is a singular one, Tai-tou, or venom from the mother's breast ; and a description is given of the fever, the eruption of pustules, their increase, flattening, and crusting. In the same Chinese book there is also an account of a species of inoculation discovered seven centuries previously; but according to a tradition it had been invented in the...

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