An inquiry into the laws of different epidemic diseases : with the view to determine the means of preserving individuals and communities from each, and also to ascertain the probability of exterminating the small-pox / by Joseph Adams.

  • Joseph Adams
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the laws of different epidemic diseases : with the view to determine the means of preserving individuals and communities from each, and also to ascertain the probability of exterminating the small-pox / by Joseph Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    During this uncertainty, it was with particular fatisfadtion that I perufed a pamphlet* written with the beft intentions, and with no lefs perfpicuity and order. The value of the w^ork was much heightened by the general view which it contains of contagion and the quarantine laws. It has of¬ ten occurred to me, that whilft the public mind is fo much engaged on the fubjedl of fmall-pox, it might be poffible to lead them to fome rational and well dire6led inquiries concerning epidemics in ge¬ neral; a fubje61: which has either beerrwholly over¬ looked, or treated without order and without dif- crimination. The learned author has conducted his inquiry, I doubt not, with perfed; corredtnefs, as far as it is conne6led with his own profefTional purfuits. On the medical part he has touched with fuch caution, as evidently fliows his wifli that the Faculty fhould enter upon it more minutely. The work commences with a doubt, whether it would be confident with Britifh liberty, to reftrain fmall-pox inoculation. To me thele doubts have always appeared a matter of furprife. Had the queftion been concerning the poffibility of inforcing a law to reftrain inoculation, it might admit of a doubt, whether, like many others, it would not ope¬ rate againft the confeientious, without redraining the unprincipled or unfeeling; admitting, how^ever, not only the power of the legislature to make, but alfo to * Letter to the Right Honourable Spencer Ptj'rcivaL—• Halcliarcl, I8O7.
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