Letter 2660

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

William Oliver to Hans Sloane – November 16, 1739.


Item info

Date: November 16, 1739.
Author: William Oliver
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4076
Folio: f. 179


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Transcription

Fol. 179 [happy to see case in the trans] One of the most prevailing arguments against inoculation is the fear of communicated other distempers with the matter of the smallpox. I think it might be worthwhile to observe the manner in which persons, labouring under other distempers, go through the smallpox; as likewise whether they are not often succeeded by eruptive diseases, of a different type, immediately after the crisis of the smallpox is over. I have observed several persons of very ill habits of body, labouring under anomial [?] distempers of various kinds, who have had the most distinct kind of smallpox, in the most favourable manner. In the west of England the milliary fever has been epidemick and very fatal, for these 15 years last past, and it has often happened that when the smallpox has been of a favourable kind, and the crisis has been as perfect as could be expected, the milliary fever has appeared and carryd off the patient in a few days and hither these observations may furnish any probable argument that the seeds of other diseases do not mix in the [?] matter in its critical expulsion or not; I submit to your consideration…

Discussions regarding observation of smallpox. William Oliver was a physician and qualified as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1692. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1704 and worked at the Royal Hospital at Greenwich from 1709 to 1714. Some of his work was published in the Philosophical Transactions (W. P. Courtney, Oliver, William (bap. 1658, d. 1716), rev. S. Glaser, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20735, accessed 17 July 2013]).



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