184 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



virus, and if not where it can be obtained. This has resulted in printing 

 in the circular letter and in the document on the Prevention of Smallpox 

 the names of a few of the reliable propagators of bovine virus; such as 

 Dr. Charles N. Hewitt of Red Wing, Minn. ; Dr. Henry A. Martin and son, 

 Roxbury Station, Boston, Mass., and H. M. Alexander & Co., of Marietta, 

 Pa. Also the information that virus is for sale by Parke, Davis & Co., 

 of Detroit, and by most druggists, and that the State Board of Health 

 does not supply vaccine virus. 



Reports; to the ^tate Board of HeaUh. 



All blanks for reports to the State Board of Health are supplied by 

 that office. The reports should be specific and carefully filled out. An 

 outbreak report on blank (L) of the first case, special weekly reports on 

 blank (M) during the continuance of the outbreak, and a special final 

 report upon blank (Q) when the outbreak is over and after disinfection 

 of the infected premises and articles has taken place, is asked for in each 

 instance, even if only one case occurred in the outbreak. These reports 

 are asked for under See. 8, Act 81, Laws of 1873, which requires special 

 reports to be nuide to the State Board of Health whenever asked for by 

 said Board. 



The blank for the special final report is sent after the outbreak is 

 believed to be ended, which report, if accurately and carefully made, will 

 give valuable information as to the source of contagium and mode of in- 

 troduction of the disease into the jurisdiction; the number of cases and 

 deaths; whether the spread of the disease was restricted; whether vaccina- 

 tion is a prevention of smallpox ; the number and proportion of the people 

 vaccinated or revaccinated ; the precautions and methods taken to restrict 

 the spread of the disease; the period "of incubation; and whether or not 

 the fumigation by fumes of burning sulphur or by formaldehyde is efiicient 

 as a disinfectant, which, together with many other important facts, may 

 be published for general use in the Annual Reports of the Board. 



Diagnosis of Smallpox. 



During the presence of smallpox the question is often asked, not only 

 by health officers who are not physicians, but by those who are physicians, 

 how can we tell smallpox from chicken-pox, and during the epidemic of 

 the mild type of the disease, the question was of almost daily occurrence. 

 The usual answer given is, that if the person first has a headache, back- 

 ache, chills or fever, followed by an eruption in about three days, the fever 

 subsiding when the eruption appears, the eruption first being papular 

 (pimples), then vesicular (watery blisters), some of the vesicles then 

 becoming umbilicated, then pustular (having pus in them), then the dis- 

 ease is smallpox. 



The inquirer is cautioned that adults seldom have chicken-pox, and 

 that it is well to bear in mind that a vesicular eruption occurring in a 

 child over ten or twelve years of age, and especially in an adult, is open 

 to grave suspicion; that usually the first sign observed, and before the 

 fever or other symptoms occur in chicken-pox is the appearance of the 

 eruption, which attains its full development in a few hours, the eruption 

 being accompanied by a rise in temperature; that some of the vesicles 

 may become umbilicated, remaining so until they dry down into a scab; 



