The truth is that, although I have no fear of any other human ailment, smallpox has always terrified me.
For this I am not to blame.

The fear is a part of my nature, instilled into it doubtless by the shock which my mother received before my birth when she learned that her husband had been attacked by this horrible sickness.

So great and vivid was my dread that I refused a very good appointment at a smallpox hospital, and, although I had several opportunities of attending these cases, I declined to undertake them, and on this account suffered somewhat in reputation among those who knew the facts.

Indeed, my natural abhorrence went even further, as, to this day, it is only with something of an effort that I can bring myself to inspect the vesicles caused by vaccination.

Whether this is because of their similarity to those of smallpox, or owing to the natural association which exists between them, I cannot tell.