Dii. Murray oh VacchiatioH. 345 



down by Dr. Philip Wilson, in his work on Eruptive Fevers, 

 '• that fever is not essential to Cow-Pox, nor even to its pre- 

 ventive eflect with respect to Small-Pox;" which is certainly 

 an erroneous doctrine ; for as it seems to be proved that the 

 eruptive fever in the exanthemata, is the cause of the assimi- 

 lating process in the system, and not the effect of it; so, in 

 Vaccine-Pox, the presence of a febrile state of the body must 

 be considered necessary to produce the process of constitutional 

 assimilation ; which process, as being the source of its protec- 

 tive virtue against Small-Pox, ought to be considered the most 

 important feature of the disease, and to ascertain its presence, 

 an object at least equally necessary for determining its validity, 

 as to ascertain that the course of the pocks on the arm has 

 been regular. 



I consider this point of so much consequence, that I must 

 trespass on your patience by quoting the opinion of the learned 

 Dr. Curry in regard to it. " On Scarlatina," says he, " the 

 disease may be extinguished by the cold affusion without the 

 specific efflorescence of the skin, or the affection of the throat, 

 by which it seems demonstrated that this efflorescence matter 

 is the product of the eruptive fever, and that the fever itself 

 being destroyed in the first instance, the efflorescent matter is 

 never produced ; — so in Small-Pox, the cold affusion if used 

 during the eruptive fever, however severe, instantly abated 

 symptoms and caused the disease to assume a benigncut form, 

 thus freeing us from the apprehensions a false theory might 

 suggest, of extinguishing a process by which nature was extri- 

 cating herself from an acrimony which the system had imbibed, 

 and thus supporting the conclusion, that the eruptive fever of 

 Small-Pox is the cause, and not, as some have supposed, the 

 consequence of the assimilation ; and that the diminution of 

 this fever by cool air, and still more by the affusion of cold 

 water, actually diminishes the quantity of matter assimilated. 



" Thus, in certain cases, the assimilation might be wholly 

 prevented, but the prevention of the assimilation of Small-Pox 

 in the constitution, by wholly extinguishing the eruptive fever, 

 if it was in our power, would not be advisable, since it must 

 leave the patient exposed to the future influence of contagion." 



The following case, related in .Johnson's Medical .Journal, 

 for 1818, of the progress of the vaccine disease being thus com- 

 pletely arrested, both locally and constitutionally at the sixth 

 day, by bimersion in cold water, is interesting. — " A healthy 

 lad was inoculated with the fluid from a fine regularly formed 

 Cow-Pox pustule, — the usual signs of its having taken effecl 

 were visible on the third day, — the disease went on favorably 

 till the sixth, and on that day the lad was accidentally thrown 

 from his horse into a pond of water, but sustained no injury 

 except a complete ducking, and the terror neccasarily caused 



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