TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have beenplaced at the end of each Chapter.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
THE STORY
OF
A GREAT DELUSION.
THE STORY
OF
A GREAT DELUSION
IN A SERIES OF MATTER-OF-FACT CHAPTERS.
By WILLIAM WHITE.
All the world assenting, and continually repeating and reverberating, theresoon comes that singular phenomenon, which the Germans call Swarmery, or the“Gathering of Men in Swarms,” and what prodigies they are in the habit of doingand believing, when thrown into that miraculous condition....
Singular, in the case of human swarms, with what perfection of unanimity andquasi-religious conviction the stupidest absurdities can be received as axioms ofEuclid, nay as articles of faith, which you are not only to believe, unless malignantlyinsane, but are (if you have any honour or morality) to push into practice, andwithout delay see done, if your soul would live!—Thomas Carlyle.
LONDON:
E. W. ALLEN, 4 AVE MARIA LANE.
1885.
GLASGOW:
HAY NISBET AND CO., PRINTERS,
STOCKWELL STREET.
CONTENTS.
| Introduction. | PAGE |
| Prefatory, | ix |
| Variolation, | x |
| The Precursor of Vaccination, | xi |
| Immediate Triumph of Vaccination, | xii |
| Jenner’s Procedure, | xiii |
| Horsegrease Cowpox, | xiv |
| Rejection of Jenner’s Prescription, | xiv |
| Jenner’s Transformation, | xv |
| Horsegrease Cowpox kept out of Sight, | xvi |