Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c16.6

c16.6

It has been lately remarked by a learned and judicious ornament of the College of Physicians, ‘That the Art of Medicine has, in several instances, been greatly indebted to accident; and that some of its most valuable improvements have been received from the hands of ignorance and barbarism; a truth, remarkably exemplified in the practice of inoculation of the small pox.’ However just *in general* this learned gentleman’s remark may be, he will as to his *particular reference*, be surprised to find, that nearly the same salutary method, now so happily pursued in England, (howsoever it has been seemingly blundered upon) has the sanction of remotest antiquity; but indeed with some variations, that will rather illustrate the propriety of the present practice, and promote the obvious very laudable intention, with which that gentleman published his late essay on this interesting subject.