56o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which there may be slight sensations of chilliness and possibly moder- 

 ate fever, the disease actually not preventing the patient from attend- 

 ing to his or her usual vocation, the end is reached, and without the 

 occurrence of eruptive symptoms. These cases are sufficiently common, 

 and the proof of the reality of the variolous process in one class, where 

 the patient afterward is not capable of receiving disease in an epidemic, 

 is substantiated by the proofs furnished by another class of cases, in 

 Avhich, for example, a pregnant woman, having suffered no more than 

 in the instance cited, later brings into the world a child covered with 

 unmistakable symptoms of the disease. 



From the extreme of benignancy illustrated in such a group of cases 

 to another in which symptoms are exhibited of a severity just short 

 of the pronounced features of classical smallpox, there is every 

 gradation and not a few excursions to the one side or the other 

 of oddity and apparent caprice. In the late epidemic, physicians were 

 often at sea respecting the nature of the disease, because, perhaps, 

 after a regular onset of classical and threatening symptoms, there 

 followed an almost absurd abortion of the morbid process, which 

 in twenty- four hours or more lost every menacing feature; or the 

 eruptive phenomena failed to develop the characteristic fluting or 

 puckering of the vesico-pustules known technically as 'umbilication' ; 

 or the peculiar odor of the disease was lacking; or the mouth failed to 

 exhibit symptoms; or the progression of the eruptive phenomena from 

 point to point of the body-surface was not according to rule. 



The question of the influence of vaccination upon the victims of the 

 epidemic and others aroused special interest. It was claimed in many 

 of the localities where the disease prevailed that the vaccinated and 

 unvaccinated suffered alike; and hence that vaccination did not pro- 

 tect. It was further claimed that in some cases vaccination had been 

 effective in those who were convalescent from the new disease. And 

 thus blunders innumerable complicated the question, the answer to 

 which was of the highest moment to the welfare of the commonwealth. 

 The disease was variously called 'Cuban itch,' 'Porto Eico scratches,' 

 'Cuban measles,' 'chicken-pox,' 'Porto Kican chicken-pox,' 'Spanish 

 measels,' etc. These popular names constituted the jargon of the igno- 

 rant. There are no maladies in Cuba, Porto Eico or Spain recognized 

 by any such terms or others like them. 



Greed is among the most potent of human motives, and it must be 

 admitted that in the presence of the late epidemic, among those who 

 were ignorant of its nature, there were to be found others who pre- 

 ferred to close their eyes to the facts. Merchants did not care to suffer 

 the paralysis of their local trade which usually is wrought by the panic 

 that flees before a pestilence. Editors of papers in the smaller towns 

 were unwilling to spread the news to their immediate rivals in the 



