206 DISEASES Class II. r. 3. ^ 



pear red, or are covered with what is termed a rafh, fhould be 

 ufed freely, as well as during the whole difeafe. And at the 

 fame time, if the feet or hands are colder than natural, thefe 

 fhould be covered with flannel. See Clafs IV. 2. 2. 10. 



Where the matter ufed is not procured quite frelh, the man- 

 ner of preferving it fhould be nicely attended to : as I have been 

 informed that a furgeon procured fome matter in a fluid (late, 

 about a tea-fpoonful, which had been kept fome time in a quill, 

 and afterwards in a fmall phial, which he carried fixteen hours in 

 his breeches-pocket ; with this he inoculated many children, 

 moft of whom had not the fmall-pox in confequence, but were 

 affe£ted with typhus, one of whom died. Whence it appears, 

 that the variolous matter had undergone by putrefaction a de- 

 compofition, and that another kind of contagious material had 

 been produced j which agrees with the ingenious obfervations 

 of Dr. Jenner, in his treatifes on the variolse vaccinae, or cow- 

 pox -, and of Mr. Kite, related in the Memoirs of the Medical 

 Society of London, "Vol. IV. 



May not the confluent fmall-pox proceed from the contagious 

 matter having undergone a partial putrefaction, fo as to contain 

 both the variolous and the typhus contagion ? and that, whether 

 the difeafe be taken naturally or by inoculation ? and that hence 

 the confluent kind confifts of the fmall-pox, with the fever com- 

 monly termed putrid ? and that, laftly, as Dr. Jenner obferves, 

 where the fmall-pox has been faid to recede, or not to rife, the 

 difeafe has been fimply a malignant or typhus fever, febris fenfa- 

 tiva inirritata, miftaken for the fmall-pox ? 



Variola vaccina. Cow-pox. Cows are liable to an eruption 

 on their paps or udders, in fome counties, as in Gloucefterfhire ; 

 which was occasionally communicated to the hands or arms of 

 thofe who milked them, producing an ulcer, and fome degree of 

 fever : and it had been long obferved by the people of thofe 

 counties, that thofe who had undergone this difeafe, which was 

 called the cow-pox, were not liable to the fmall-pox. 



Dr. Jenner, an* eminent phyfician in Gloucefterftiire, fortu- 

 nately attended to this difeafe, found it to be much milder than 

 the fmall-pox, and that the fact was true, that it fecured thofe 

 who had been infected with it from afterwards being liable to 

 the variolous infection. He alio obferved, that the vaccine-pox 

 is not infectious, but by careful inoculation •, and that, on this 

 account, it might be inoculated in a family, without endanger- 

 ing others. A circumftance of great confequence to the public, 

 as the inoculation of the fmall-pox is known frequently to prop- 

 agate that difeafe ; and alfo to private families, when there hap- 

 pens to be a pregnant w^man in them, who has not had the 



fmall-pox : 



