about two days before and two days after the eighth day, when the matter is found to be in its greatest activity.

After the eighth day, when the pustule is fully formed, the effects on the constitution begin to be seen; and the general indisposition is commonly preceded by pain at the pustule, and in the armpit, followed by head ache, shivering, loss of appetite, pain in the limbs, and a feverish increase of the pulse. These continue with more or less violence for one or two days; and always subside spontaneously, without leaving any unpleasant consequences. During the general indisposition, the pustule in the arm, which had been advancing to maturation in a uniform manner, becomes surrounded with a circular, inflamed margin, about an inch, or an inch and a half broad; and this redness is an indication, that the whole system is affected; for the general indisposition, if it occur at all, always appears at, or before the time, when the efflorescence becomes visible.

I have been somewhat particular, in giving the history of the invention, and circumstances of the vaccine disease, as the necessity of practising the inoculation in every family is one, that comes home to us all. A parent, who should lose a child by small pox at the present time, one would think, would furnish himself with a source of heart-rending selfcondemnation, which would last him to the grave; for the event could be charged only to the account of the most reckless and culpable neglect. But such is the slow and difficult progress of truth, and such it has been in every age, so many impediments has it to encounter from ignorance, prejudice, and wanton indifference and carelessness, that thousands still continue to die of the most loathsome and horrible disease, small pox, who, when asked, if they have been vaccinated, answer, no. Where this is written, in a population of 28,000, more than twenty deaths have occurred in a year from natural small pox; not one of which, it is believed, would have happened, had the persons been rightly vaccinated. At least, a thousand deaths have occurred the past year in our country from this wanton and heedless neglect. Alas! what a world is this in which we

live! How slow and difficult is the progress of information! How many there are, who will resist all evidence, even at the risk of life! How many would remain unconvinced, even though one came from the dead to teach them! What need of patience and forbearance in those, who inculcate truth!

It cannot be disguised, that this most important discovery, forming an era in the history of human inventions, has been assailed within the few past years with more specious objections, than it has ever encountered before. A disease, as some contend, new in the annals of human suffering, but which I believe to have been coeval with small pox, called varioloid, or modified small pox, has extended itself over the civilized countries of Europe and America. It assails a small proportion of those persons, who have had small pox, either natural or inoculated, or the vaccine disease. It is believed, that the two disorders are about alike in their conservative effects against this disease. In many cases, it is a severe disease, and in some mortal. Its results have been by no means noted, classed, and reasoned upon, with that solicitude of investigation, which the importance of the subject demanded. But the general impression seems clearly to have been, that the vaccine disease is more certain to mitigate the virulence of varioloid, than the small pox; and that there are fewer mortal cases of varioloid from the number of those, who have had the vaccine disease, than those who have had the small pox.

Be this as it may, there are so few instances of mortality from modified small pox, among persons, who have clearly had the genuine vaccine disease, that they may be classed among those anomalies and exceptions, that attend all general rules. In attacks of varioloid upon such subjects, the primary symptoms are often severe and alarming, threatening the most violent form of small pox. But the mitigating and restraining power of the vaccine disease shows itself at the moment, when its aid is most invaluable. The secondary fever, which destroys nine in ten of those who die by small pox, in those, who have had the vaccine dis

ease, is either wholly arrested, or so mild, as to bring no alarm. Besides, numbers of those who die of small pox, it is believed, are falsely put down as persons who have been vaccinated, to shield survivors from the charge of heedless neglect, in not having procured the vaccination of their friends.

In fact, we have all of us seen small and varioloid prepox vailing for years in various towns of our country, where not one person in a hundred has been secured against infection in any other way, than by having had the vaccine disease. Can we doubt, that, but for the conservative effects of the vaccine disease, the desolating pestilence, small pox, would have swept these towns with the besom of mortality? Why should not desolation and death have scourged these towns, as small pox used to scourge them in places, where it prevailed, before the discovery of the vaccine disease? We perceive, in fact, that here and there a victim falls, generally among the ignorant, reckless and improvident. But the sick are not removed as formerly. No efforts are made to arrest the infection. The people, in the security of the vaccine disease, traverse the infected streets with confidence. We have thus under our eyes, even during the general prevalence of small pox and varioloid, a standing and universal proof of the general conservative effects of the vaccine disease. Scarcely any of the younger physicians, who attend these sporadic cases of small pox and varioloid, have had any other security against infection, than the vaccine disease. When we add to this, that varioloid is scarcely ever fatal to those, who have been genuinely vaccinated, it seems to me, that the vaccine discovery, instead of losing any of its importance, since the prevalence of varioloid, has in reality enhanced its claims, and proved itself of more value, than before the extensive diffusion of modified small pox; for we cannot for a moment believe, that varioloid is a new disorder, originating in the influence of vaccination.

LECTURE LV.

CHOICE OF PURSUIT.

My original purpose was to occupy myself entirely with views of physical nature, and the reflections which such views obviously suggested. The history of canals and rail roads, and various other improvements, which may well be claimed as exclusively modern, lay before me. But besides, that these subjects are worn to triteness in innumerable ephemeral publications, I could not answer it to my conscience, to close these lectures, without evincing my sense of the relative importance of moral, compared with physical truth; an estimate, which, in my mind, it is the great misfortune of the present day to have left almost out of sight. I deem one moral truth worth a thousand facts in the exact sciences. I deem the settling of the young, who are to constitute the next generation, in wise and right courses, of more intrinsic utility, than all the physical discoveries, and all the lore of the exact sciences, that have been accumulated, since the commencement of time. only clue of order in my series of subjects, which must have seemed to the reader entirely desultory, has been to unite, as much as possible, interest with utility. The moral views,

The

which follow, flow from the same purpose. I shall barely touch, as I pass, upon some of the leading ideas suggested by my subject, solicitous rather to excite attention to my theme, than to discuss it at length and in detail.

The first and most obvious truth, in reference to the choice of a pursuit, is that, in the constitution of things, it is so arranged, that every choice must necessarily present a balance of gain and loss, advantage and disadvantage, good and evil. The author of our being has seen fit in this way to adjust the scales of human condition, with an impartial reference to all that live, as wise and benevolent, as it is

just; so that the chances of happiness are nearly equal to all the different races and conditions of men.

I view it as a truth beyond question, that Providence has designed man for the civilized state; and, as a subordinate part of that plan, has furnished every individual of the species with that kind and degree of endowment, which, rightly consulted, and directed, will fit him for precisely that part and place in the social edifice, which he is best qualified to fill. In this way every variety of aptitude, talent and capability, of which nature has furnished such beautiful gradations, such infinite shades and diversities, is labelled by the sign manual of the author of our being for the part which it is intended to perform. The highest responsibility of the parent and instructer is to ascertain, as far as may be, the pursuit or calling, for which his child or pupil is indicated. The embryo germs of temperament, endowment and character, even in minds of the most ordinary cast, are much more prominent, and strongly marked, than is generally supposed.

The young, then, who have arrived at that period of life, when the momentous duty devolves upon them, of choosing a pursuit, have first to enquire, for what pursuit or calling their temperament, faculties and powers best fit them. As their estimation, usefulness, and enjoyment in life will much depend upon right views on this point, they ought, of course, by patient and close observation, pursued with a fidelity proportioned to its importance, by intent study of themselves, as the changes of their health, propensities and prospects, the fluctuations of their spirits, their tempers in their collisions with their kind, in all the contingencies which befall them, furnish them with the means of forming just conceptions of the peculiar cast of their powers, and the walk in life for which their capabilities are best adapted.

It is of infinite consequence, that this scrutiny should be conducted by the severest reason, undazzled by any of those prismatic illusions, which imagination is so apt to present in the case, and which sober experience will be sure to disap