Observations medical and political, on the small-pox, and the advantages and disadvantages of general inoculation, especially in cities : and on the mortality of mankind at every age in city and country; with a comparative view and regular tables of all the fatal diseases and casualties in London, during the last one hundred and five years, ... To which is added a postscript, containing the sketch of an easy plan for new modelling and essentially improving the London bills of births and mortality ... / by W. Black.
- William Black
- Date:
- 1781
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations medical and political, on the small-pox, and the advantages and disadvantages of general inoculation, especially in cities : and on the mortality of mankind at every age in city and country; with a comparative view and regular tables of all the fatal diseases and casualties in London, during the last one hundred and five years, ... To which is added a postscript, containing the sketch of an easy plan for new modelling and essentially improving the London bills of births and mortality ... / by W. Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
![[ ] ed by any written memorials. Enquiry hi- therto has been pufhed no further back ^ but perhaps it is to India that Europe is ori- ginally indebted for this important difcovery, through the medium of the Circaffians. Neither Rhazes, Avicenna, nor any of tlie Arabian phyficians, who wrote in the ninth and tenth centuries, make the leaft mention of Inoculation. Had variolous goifon been tranfported from India to Ara- bia, the phyficians of the latter nation could not have remained ignorant of a praftice, ac- cording to Indian tradition, fo univerfal and ancient^ and attended with fuch happy con- fequences: at leaft, we may fairly prefume that the Arabian writers would not have ob- served a profound filence upon Inoculation^ ' if they had heard of its ufe in any part of the world. The queftion therefor^, remains to be de- termined, whether Small-pox and Meafles were firft engendered \v\ the climates of Arabia or India; or whether both countries did not give birth to thofe fcourges of the human race -y for to derive them from the burning fands of Ethiopia is mere romance. We Jcnow that the variolous difeafe is not bred ^1!](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21354236_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
