( 8 )
every acute or critical disease with their effects, which render those who labour under them more unfit subjects of inoculation, are none of the most inconsiderable benefits which may be derived from the taking the disease in this way. Yet those are not all; there is some advantage in a suitable preparation of the person to receive the small-pox, from procuring the circumstances necessary for having it with the least possible inconveniency or danger.
I would not here be understood to mean that every person to be inoculated, ought to go thro' a course of medicine; or that any particular rule can be laid down that will apply precisely to every case. Whilst "those who are in high health or of a plethoric habit of body, require to be reduced to a more secure state; those who are weak and low to be recruited, and those who about with crudities, or sharp humours, to have them corrected or expelled"; so there are some persons who need no preparation whatever; and in whom no change can be made in their constitution, whether by diet or medicine, that will not, by removing it from that exact medium of disposition, in which the most perfect state of health consists, prove hurtful rather than serviceable, and dispose them to have the disease more unfavorably, than if they were to be inoculated without useing any medical assistance at all; but these cases are perhaps few: And such persons, when no ways prepared, have from inoculation alone, and a care to avoid all errors in the non-