every discovery that may be of advantage to its commerce. The
Circassians observed that scarce one person in a thousand was ever
attacked by a small-pox of a violent kind. That some, indeed, had this
distemper very favourably three or four times, but never twice so as to
prove fatal; in a word, that no one ever had it in a violent degree twice
in his life. They observed farther, that when the small-pox is of the
milder sort, and the pustules have only a tender, delicate skin to break
through, they never leave the least scar in the face. From these natural
observations they concluded, that in case an infant of six months or a
year old should have a milder sort of small-pox, he would not die of it,
would not be marked, nor be ever afflicted with it again.

In order, therefore, to preserve the life and beauty of their children,
the only thing remaining was to give them the small-pox in their infant
years. This they did by inoculating in the body of a child a pustule
taken from the most regular and at the same time the most favourable sort
of small-pox that could be procured.

The experiment could not possibly fail. The Turks, who are people of
good sense, soon adopted this custom, insomuch that at this time there is
not a bassa in Constantinople but communicates the small-pox to his
children of both sexes immediately upon their being weaned.

Some pretend that the Circassians borrowed this custom anciently from the
Arabians; but we shall leave the clearing up of this point of history to
some learned Benedictine, who will not fail to compile a great many
folios on this subject, with the several proofs or authorities. All I
have to say upon it is that, in the beginning of the reign of King George
I., the Lady Wortley Montague, a woman of as fine a genius, and endued
with as great a strength of mind, as any of her sex in the British