DISEASES CLASS II. 1. 3. II. 



this deleterious material; while other parts of it are carried inter 

 the stomach, and are probably decomposed by the power of di- 

 gestion; as seems to happen to the venom of the viper, when 

 taken into the stomach. Our perception of bad tastes in our 

 mouths, at the same time that we perceive disagreeable odours 

 to our nostrils, when we inhale very bad air, occasions us to spit 

 out our saliva; and thus, in some instances, to preserve ourselves 

 from infection. This has been supposed to originate from the 

 sympathy between the organs of taste and smell; but any 

 one who goes into a sick-room close shut up, or into a crowded 

 assembly-room, or tea-room, which is not sufficiently ventilated, 

 may easily mix the bad air with the saliva on his tongue so as to 

 taste it; as I have myself frequently attended to. 



Hence it appears that these heavy infectious matters are more 

 liable to mix with the saliva, and inflame the tonsils, and that 

 either before or at the commencement of the fever ; and this is 

 what generally happens in the scarlet fever, always I suppose in 

 the malignant kind, and very frequently in the mild kind. But 

 as this infection may be taken by other means, as by the skin, 

 it also happens in the most mild kind, that there is no inflamma- 

 tion of the tonsils at all ; in the same manner as there is gene- 

 rally no inflammation of the tonsils in the inoculated small-pox. 



In the mild scarlatina on the fourth day of the fever the face 

 swells a little, at the same time a florid redness appears on vari- 

 ous parts of the skin in large blotches, at length coalescing, and 

 after three days changing into branny scales. 



M. M. Cool air. Fruit. Lemonade. Milk and water. 



Scarlatina maligna. The malignant scarlet fever begins with 

 inflamed tonsils; which are succeeded by dark drab-coloured 

 sloughs from three to five lines in diameter, flat, or beneath the 

 surrounding surface; and which conceal beneath them spreading 

 gangrenous ulcers. The sweUings of the tonsils are sensible to 

 the eye and touch externally, and have an elastic rather than an 

 oedematous feel, like parts in the vicinity of gangrenes. The 

 pulse is very quick and weak, with delirium, and the patient 

 generally dies in a few days; or if he recovers, it is by slow de- 

 grees, and attended with anasarca. 



M. M. A vomit once. Wine. Beer. Cider. Opium. 

 Bark, in small repeated doses. Small successive blisters, if the 

 extremities are cooler than natural. Cool air on the hot parts 

 of the skin, the cool extremities being at the same time covered. 

 Iced lemonade. Broth. Custards. Milk. Jellies. Bread 

 pudding. Chicken. Touch the ulcers with a dry sponge to 

 absorb the contagious matter, and then with a sponge filled with 

 vinegar, with or without sugar of lead dissolved in it, about six 



