[BURGES, James]. An Account of the Preparation and Management Necessary to Inoculation. London: P. Vaillant, in the Strand, MDCCLXVI. [1766].
The second edition, with large additions and improvements. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Octavo (165 x 100 x 20 mm.). Pp. xxviii, 124. Bound in modern full leather, retaining the original title-plate, spine gilt. Head- and tail-pieces. Decorative initials. Condition: Binding tight and secure, some light browning to a few leaves but largely clean, without previous ownership markings. Scarce.
Notes: Rare second and expanded edition. "Physicians writing in midcentury accorded Jurin's work a prominent place in the eventual acceptance of inoculation. James Burges . . . perceived that quantitative arguments were very persuasive, and he provided a brief history of the acceptance of inoculation to illustrate their role. Those who opposed inoculation, Burges wrote, did so 'with all the arguments their wit and prejudices could furnish.' Those who supported the practice, on the other hand, had 'recourse to calculation, by comparing the numbers of those that died in the natural ways, with that of the persons that miscarried under the inoculation, by demonstrating how small the chance was of escaping the distemper, and how little the hazard incurred from this new method of contracting it.' Burges concluded that Jurin's approach 'carried such conviction with it, as soon confounded their opposers, and establish the practice' " (Rusnock, Vital Accounts: Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth-Century England and France, pp. 67-68).
