DISEASES CLASS 17. 1* 3. 9. 



pear red, or are covered with what is termed a rash, should be 

 used freely, as well as during the whole disease. And at the 

 same time, if the feet or hands are colder than natural, these 

 should be covered with flannel. See Class IV. 2. 2. 10. 



Where the matter used is not procured quite fresh, the manner 

 of preserving it should be nicely attended to: as I have been in- 

 formed that a surgeon procured some matter in a fluid slate, 

 about a tea-spoonful, which had been kept some time in a quill, 

 and afterwards in a small phial, which he carried sixteen hours 

 in his breeches-pocket; with this he inoculated many children, 

 most of whom had not the small-pox in consequence, but were 

 affected with typhus, one of whom died. Whence it appears, 

 that the variolous matter had undergone by putrefaction a decom- 

 position, and that another kind of contagious material had been 

 produced; which agrees with the ingenious observations of Dr. 

 Jenner, in his treatises on the variolae vaccinae, or cow-pox; and 

 of Mr. Kite, related in the Memoirs of the Medical Society of 

 London, Vol. IV. 



May not the confluent small-pox proceed from the contagious 

 matter having undergone a partial putrefaction, so as to contain 

 both the variolous arid the typhus contagion? and that, whether 

 the disease be taken naturally or by inoculation? and that hence 

 the confluent kind consists of the small-pox, with the fever com- 

 monly termed putrid? and that, lastly, as Dr. Jenner observes, 

 where the small-pox has been said to recede, or not to rise, the 

 disease has been simply a malignant or typhus fever, febris sen- 

 sativa inirritata, mistaken for the small-pox? 



Variola vaccina. Cow-pox. Cows are liable to an eruption 

 on their paps or udders, in some counties, as in Gloucestershire; 

 which has occasionally communicated to the hands or arms of 

 those who milked them, producing an ulcer, and some degree of 

 fever: and it had been long observed by the people of those coun- 

 ties, that those who had undergone this disease, which was called . 

 the cow-pox, were not liable to the small-pox. 



Dr. Jenner, an eminent physician in Gloucestershire, fortu- 

 nately attended to this disease, found it to be much milder than 

 the small-pox, and that the fact was true, that it secured those 

 who had been infected with it from afterwards being liable to 

 the variolous infection. He also observed, that the vaccirie-pox 

 is not infectious, but by careful inoculation; and that on this 

 account, it might be inoculated in a family, without endanger- 

 ing others. A circumstance of great consequence to the public, 

 as the inoculation of the small-pox is known frequently to pro- 

 pagate that disease; and also to private families, when there 

 happens to be a pregnant woman in them, who has not had the 



