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uncomrTion cafes are not the beft lubje£ls for medical inquiry ; 

 but they often ferve to refled light on thofe which are more 

 ufual ; and befides, whatever affedls human nature muft natu- 

 rally conciliate our attention. 



Our beft Nofologift, Dr. Cullen, (to whom, by the by, no in- 

 ftance of this difeafe ever occurred) has claflcd Pemphigus in 

 the order of Exanthemata. This clalTification will certainly 

 appear fufTiciently proper to thofe who grant this Nofologift 

 the latitude he allows himfelf in the arrangement of his ge- 

 nera. When the plague and petechial fever are allowed to be 

 claffed under different heads, and the thrufh and fcarlet fever 

 under the fame head, we need not contend about the place of 

 Pemphigus, even though we fhould find it not to be contagious, 

 fometimes commencing and continuing without fever, and af- 

 feding perfons more than once in the courfe of their lives. 

 Dr. Cullen defcribes this diforder as follows : " A contagious 

 " fever, veficles about the lize of an almond appearing on the 

 " firft, fecond, or third day of the difeafe, remaining for many 

 " days, and at length pouring out a thin ichor." I propofe to 

 amend his defcription in the following manner : A fever, accom- 

 panied roith the Juccejfive eruption from different parts of the body, 

 ititernal as 'well as external, of veficles about the fize of an almond, 

 nvhich become turgid with a faintly yellawijh ferum, and in three or 

 four days fubftde. I ftiall only obferve at prcfent, that I am 

 by no means convinced of this diforder being contagious ; that 

 new veficles arife, not only on the firft, fecond, or third, but 

 on every day of the difeafe ; that I have never known them 

 remain for many days ; that the fluid they contain does not 

 appear in general to be an ichor or fanies, but a bland, ino- 

 dorous, 



