004 DISEASES CLASS II. 1. 3. 9. 



vender the disease mild by the same author. Exper. on Mercu- 

 ry by Van Woensel, translated by Dr. Fowle, Salisbury. 



C.Dessarts, in the sitting of the French national institute, is said 

 to have adduced a number of facts to prove, that the natural 

 small-pox is rendered much milder by the use of mercurial reme- 

 dies; which I suppose is probably true, as mercurials increase 

 the absorption in many other ulcers, and consequently diminish 

 the acrimony of the matter, and forward their healing. 



Variola inoculata. The world is much indebted to the great 

 discoverer of the good effects of inoculation, whose name is un- 

 known; and our own country to lady Wortley Montague for 

 its introduction into this part of Europe. By inserting the vario- 

 lous contagion into the arm, it is not received by the tonsils, as 

 generally happens, I suppose, in the natural small-pox; whence 

 there is no dangerous swelling of the throat, and as the pustules 

 are generally few and distinct, there is seldom any secondary 

 fever; whence those two sources of danger are precluded; 

 hence when the throat in inoculated small -pox is much inflam- 

 ed and swelled, there is reason to believe, that the disease had 

 been previously taken by the tonsils in the natural way: which 

 also, I suppose, has generally happened, where the confluent 

 kind of small-pox has occurred on inoculation. 



I have known two instances, and have heard of others, where 

 the natural small-pox began fourteen days after the contagion 

 had been received; one of these instances w r as of a countryman, 

 who went to a market-town many miles from his home, where 

 he saw a person in the small-pox, and on returning the fever 

 commenced that day fortnight: the other was of a child, whom 

 the ignorant mother carried to another child ill of the small-pox, 

 on purpose to communicate the disease to it; and the variolous 

 fever began on the fourteenth day from that time. So that in 

 both these cases fever commenced in half a lunation after the 

 contagion was received. In the inoculated small-pox the fever, 

 generally commences on the seventh day; or after a quarter of 

 a lunation; and on this circumstance probably depends the 

 greater mildness of the latter. The reason of which is difficult 

 to comprehend; but supposing the facts to be generally as above 

 related, the slower progress of the contagion indicates a greater 

 inirritability of the system, and in consequence a tendency to 

 malignant rather than to inflammatory fever. This difference of 

 the time between the reception of the infection and the fever in 

 the natural and artificial small-pox may nevertheless depend on 

 its being inserted into a different series of vessels; or to some un- 

 known effect of lunar periods. It is a subject of great curiosity, 

 and deserves further investigatioa. 



