CHILD WHO HAD SMALL-POX IN THE WOMB. 341 



the natural way, was a woman of about twenty-two years of 

 age, and big with child. The eruptive fever was slight^ and" 

 the small-pox had appeared before I saw her. They were 

 few, distinct, and large, and she went through the disease 

 with very little trouble, till, on the fourteenth day from the 

 eruption, she was attacked with the fever, which lasted only 

 a few hours. She was, however, the same day taken in la- 

 bour, and delivered of a female child, with the small-pox on 

 her whole body, head, and extremities. They were distinct 

 and very large, such as they commonly appear on the eighth 

 or ninth day, in favourable cases. The child was small and 

 weakly ; she could suck but little ; a wet nurse was procured, 

 and every possible care taken of this infant, but she died the 

 third day after she was born. The mother recovered, and is 

 now the property of Alexander Peterkin, Esq. in St 

 James -1 parish. 



In the course of many years 1 practice in Jamaica, I have re- 

 marked that where pregnant women had been seized with the 

 natural small-pox, or been by mistake inoculated, that they 

 generally miscarried in the time of, or soon after, the eruptive 

 fever ; but I never saw any signs of small-pox on any of their 

 bodies, except on the child above mentioned. I am, &c. 



SOUTHAMPTON-BCILDIKGS, HoLBORN, 



February 27- 1781. 



