number of days.  I shall not easily forget the alarm and anxiety of the father and mother upon this occasion; both of them the best of parents, and both of them now punished for having yielded to this fashionable quackery.  I will not say, justly punished; for affection for their children, in which respect they were never surpassed by any parents on earth, was the cause of their listening to the danger-obviating quackery.  This, too, is the case with other parents; but parents should be under the influence of reason and experience, as well as under that of affection; and now, at any rate, they ought to set this really dangerous quackery at nought.

265.  And, what does my own experience say on the other side?  There are my seven children, the sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and the daughters as tall as their mother; all, in due succession, inoculated with the good old-fashioned face-tearing small-pox; neither of them with a single mark of that disease on their skins; neither of them having been, that we could perceive, ill for a single hour, in consequence of the inoculation.  When we were in the United States, we observed that the Americans were never marked with the small-pox; or, if such a thing were seen, it was very rarely.  The cause we found to be, the universal practice of having the children inoculated at the breast, and, generally, at a month or six weeks old.  When we came to have children, we did the same.  I believe that some of ours have been a few months old when the operation has been performed, but always while at the breast, and as early as possible after the expiration of six weeks from the birth; sometimes put off a little while by some slight disorder in the child, or on account of some circumstance or other; but, with these exceptions, done at, or before, the end of six weeks from the birth, and always at the breast.  All is then pure:  there is nothing in either body or mind to favour the natural fury of the disease.  We always took particular care about the source from which the infectious matter came.  We employed medical men, in whom we could place perfect confidence:  we had their solemn word for the matter coming from some healthy child; and, at last, we had sometimes to wait for this, the cow-affair having rendered patients of this sort rather rare.

266.  While the child has the small-pox, the mother should abstain from food and drink, which she may require at other times, but which might be too gross just now.  To suckle a hearty child requires good living; for, besides that this is necessary to the mother, it is also necessary to the child.  A little forbearance, just at this time, is prudent; making the diet as simple as possible, and avoiding all violent agitation either of the body or the spirits; avoiding too, if you can, very hot or very cold weather.