ACUTE INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



vesicles; new crops usually appear for several days, so that the disease 

 is often protracted for a fortnight, or longer; and in the later stages 

 we find dried vesicles and fresh ones alongside of each other. Rarely 

 vesicles form on the mucous membrane of the mouth and fauces, and 

 they soon change to small, round ulcers. There is no constitutional 

 disturbance. 



TREATMENT. Treatment is scarcely necessary in varicella, as the 

 disease is not dangerous, or very inconvenient, and always terminates 

 in recovery, after lasting a week or two. Nevertheless, it is advisable 

 to protect the patients from all injurious influences while the affection 

 lasts, to keep them in their chamber, and to regulate the diet. 



CHAPTER VII. 



TYPHUS FEVER EXANTHEMATIC TYPHUS PETECHIAL TYPHUS, 

 SPOTTED FEVER. 



ETIOLOGY. Exanthematic typhus (morbus acutus, febrilis, conta- 

 giosus, exanthemate proprio ac eminenti systematis nervosi passione 

 stipatus, Hildebrand) is very closely related to the previously de- 

 scribed infectious diseases, measles, scarlatina, and small-pox, by its 

 contagiousness, and by the local affection of the skin in the shape of 

 an extensive exanthema ; while, on the other hand, its symptoms cor- 

 respond so closely with those of abdominal typhus, that many authors 

 consider it a variety of the latter. The contagiousness of exanthe- 

 matic typhus can only be doubted by those who have had the opportu- 

 nity of observing the disease in large epidemics solely. When an 

 epidemic disease first affects a large city, or still larger district, it is 

 almost impossible to decide whether the disease be transferred from 

 one person to another, or if different individuals be affected inde- 

 pendently from having been exposed to the same causes of injury. 

 The case is quite different when the disease attacks smaller places, 

 where it may readily be watched and its extension observed. In such 

 cases there is a more favorable opportunity of observing the contagious 

 or non-contagious nature of the malady. All observers who have had 

 such an opportunity in exanthematic typhus agree that the power of 

 contagion is just as evident, in this disease, as in any other. Among 

 the numerous observations tending to prove the contagiousness of ex 

 anthematic typhus, I may mention two of my own, which are particular- 

 ly striking. In the year 1854 two typhus patients were received into 

 the Magdeburg hospital from the prison, which was much crowded. Foi 

 months previous there had been only a few cases of abdominal typhus, 

 and not a single case of exanthematic typhus in my wards. Eighi 



