EXTRACT VIII. 



ON THE EXANTHEMATA, AND HOW THEY ARE 

 RELATED TO THE FOREGOING VIEWS. 



THE exanthemata constitute an order of diseases of a 

 conspicuous and very important character, and have from 

 the very earliest period of scientific, as well as folk, 

 medicine, given rise to the greatest interest the eruptive 

 symptoms with which they are accompanied, and the 

 febrile disturbance to which they generally give rise, alike 

 claiming the attention of the patient, his friends, and his 

 medical attendant. 



Their nature, genesis, and after effects have been keenly 

 observed and discussed, and classifications made according 

 to, sometimes the intensity of the fever and sometimes 

 the appearance and character of the eruptions, the length 

 of time of their endurance, and the many other features 

 by which they are known. 



According to the most modern teaching they are 

 regarded as all but entirely bacterial in origin, and the 

 view is all but universally held that the zymotic or 

 microbic poison on which their production depends, incu- 

 bates or grows in, and is finally thrown out of, the blood 

 by eruption each eruption differing from another accord- 

 ing to the behaviour of its specific virus. In this process 

 of eruptive excretion it is taken for granted that the 

 capillary blood circulatory mechanism somehow effects the 

 expulsion of the zymotic organisms, and leaves on the 

 various surfaces, cutaneous and membranous, an impress 

 according to their varying nature and character.* This 

 we confess our inability to see in, we may say, a large 



