Glass II. i. 3. 9. OF SENSATION. ie 3 



vulfions do not precede' this kind ot" fmall-pox, and are fo far to 

 be elteemed a favourable iymptom. 



The confluent fmall-pox is attended with fenfitive inirrritated 

 fever, or inftimmation with arterial debility; whence the clan- 

 ger of this difeafe is owing to the general tendency to gangrene, 

 with petechia, or purple fpots, and haemorrhages ; besides the 

 two foarces of danger from the tumor of the throat about the 

 height, or eleventh day of the eruption, and .the purulent fever 

 after that time ; which are generally much more to be dreaded 

 in this than in the dJitinct fmall-pox defcribed above. 



M. M. The method of treatment muft vary with the degree 

 and kind of fever. Venefection may be ufed in the diilmcl: 

 fmall-pox early in the difeafe, according to the ftrength or hard- 

 nefs of the pulfe ; and perhaps on the firft day of the confluent 

 fmall-pox, and even of the plague, before the fenforial power is 

 exhauited by the violence of the arterial action ? Cold air, and 

 even waihing or bathing in cold v/ater, is a powerful means in 

 perhaps all eruptive difeafes attended with fever ', as the quan- 

 tity of eruption depends on the quantity of the fever, and the 

 activity of the cutaneous veflels ; which may be judged of by 

 the heat produced on the fkin ; and which latter is immediately 

 abated by expofure to external cold. Mercurial purges, as three 

 grains of calomel repeated every day during the eruptive fever, 

 fo as to induce three or four (tools, contribute to abate inflam- 

 mation ; and is believed by-fome to have a fpeciric effect on the 

 variolous, as it is fuppofed to have on the venereal contagion. 



It has been faid, that opening the pock and taking out the 

 matter has not abated the fecondary fever ; but as I had conceiv- 

 ed, that the pits, or marks, left after the fmall-pox, were owing 

 to the acrimony of the matter beneath the hard fcabs, which 

 not being able to exhale eroded the fkin, and produced ulcers, 

 I directed the faces of two patients in the confluent fmall-pox 

 to be covered with cerate early in the difeafe, which was daily 

 renewed ; and I was induced to think, that they had much lefs 

 of the fecondary fever, and were fo little marked, that one of 

 them, who was a young lady, almoft entirely preferved her 

 beauty. Perhaps mercurial plaiters, or cerates, made without 

 turpentine in them, might have been more efficacious in pre- 

 venting the marks, and efpecially if applied early in the difeafe, 

 even on the firft day of the eruption, and renewed daily. For 

 it appears from the experiments of Van Woenfel, that calomel 

 or corrofive fublimate, triturated with variolous matter, incapaci- 

 tates it from giving the difeafe by inoculation. Calomel or 

 fublimate given as an alterative for ten days before inoculation, 

 ^nd till the eruptive fever commences, is laid with certainty, to 



rendejf 



