Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/272

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TOUR THROUGH

with as favourable a reception in Holland from the faculty, as it has in England. A few bigotted persons, with whom superstitious women and weak men join, object to the cow-pox inoculation, because they say it introduces a bestial disorder into the human system; but the liberal and enlightened part of the medical tribe espouse with warmth this new method of avoiding a loathsome and dangerous distemper, and their practice has been uniformly successful. The disease has been known for time immemorial to the peasants of FriesLand, in which province the greatest quantities of butter and cheese are yearly produced, and the result of various enquiries among them have been uniformly in favour of the cow-pox.

The belief of its utility and efficacy is so thoroughly established in Holland, that in the Foundling-hospital of Amsterdam, and other charitable institutions where young children are received, the old mode of inoculation is exploded, and the vaccine infection substituted in its stead. This departure from the old practice of surgery was not