A pamphlet written by John Holwell, with the lengthy title ‘An account of the manner of inoculating, for the small pox in the East Indies with some observations on the practice and mode of treating the disease in those parts’ (London, 1767), Beckett & Hondt., was dated Chilton Lodge, Wilts, September 1, 1767.
Holwell, who is much more famous for his account of the Black Hole Tragedy, was a surgeon by profession.
In this influential account, Holwell talks about inoculating with dried matter from other older inoculated pustules from the preceding year, which were dissolved in Ganges water to produce a weaker virus. Such inoculation was carried out, he says, by a community of itinerant Brahmins from north India. During the practice, Sitala, the goddess of small pox, was prayed to.
