CLASS II. 1. 3. 9. OP SENSATION. 203 



vulsions do not precede this kind of small-pox ? and are so far to 

 be esteemed a favourable symptom. 



The confluent small-pox is attended with sensitive inirritated 

 fever, or inflammation with arterial debility; whence the dan- 

 ger of this disease is owing to the general tendency to gangrene, 

 with petechiae, or purple spots, and haemorrhages; besides the 

 two sources of danger from the tumour of the throat about the 

 height, or eleventh day of the eruption, and the purulent fever 

 after that time; which are generally much more to be dreaded 

 in this than in the distinct small-pox described above. 



M. M. The method of treatment must vary with the degree 

 and kind of fever. Venesection may be used in the distinct 

 small-pox early in the disease, according to the strength or hard- 

 ness of the pulse; and perhaps on the first day of the confluent 

 small-pox, and even of the plague, before the sensorial power is 

 exhausted by the violence of the arterial action? Cold air, and 

 even washing or bathing in cold water, is a powerful means in 

 perhaps all eruptive diseases attended with fever; as the quan- 

 tity of eruption depends on the quantity of the fever, and the 

 activity of the cutaneous vessels; which may be judged of by 

 the heat produced on the skin; and which latter is immediately 

 abated by exposure to external cold. Mercurial purges, as three 

 grains of calomel repeated every day during the eruptive fever, 

 so as to induce three or four stools, contribute to abate inflam- 

 mation; and is believed by some to have a specific effect on the 

 variolous, as it is supposed to have on the venereal contagion. 



It has been said, that opening the pock and taking out the 

 matter has not abated the secondary fever; but as I had conceiv- 

 ed that the pits or marks, left after the small-pox, were owing 

 to the acrimoay of the matter beneath the hard scabs, which, 

 not being able to exhale, eroded the skin, and produced ulcers, 

 I directed the faces of two patients in the confluent small-pox 

 to be covered with cerate early in the disease, which was daily 

 renewed; and I was induced to think, that they had much less 

 of the secondary fever, and were so little marked, that one of 

 them, who was a young lady, almost entirely preserved her 

 beauty. Perhaps mercurial plasters, or cerates, made without 

 turpentine in them, might have been more efficacious in pre- 

 venting the marks, and especially if applied early in the disease, 

 even on the first day of the eruption, and renewed daily. For 

 it appears from the experiments of Van Woensel, that calomel 

 or corrosive sublimate, triturated with variolous matter, incapaci- 

 tates it from giving the disease by inoculation. Calomel or 

 -sublimate given as an alterative for ten days before inoculation, 

 and till the eruptive fever commences, is said with certainty to 



