CLASS II. i. 3. 9. OF SENSATION. 103 



vulfions do not precede this kind of fmall-pox, and are To far to 

 be efteemed a favourable fymptorn. 



The confluent fmall-pox is attended with fenfitive inirrritatcd 

 fever, or inflammation with arterial debility ; whence the 

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

 with petechke, or purple fpots, and haemorrhages , befides the 

 two fources of danger from the tumor of die 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 diltincl fmall-pox described above. 



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

 and kind of fever. Venefeclion may be ufed in the dii. 

 fmall-pox early in the difeafe, according to the ftrength or harci- 

 nefs of the pulfe ; and perhaps on the firft day of the confluent 

 fmall-pox, and even of the plague, before the lenforial power is 

 exhaulled by the violence of the arterial aclion ? Cold air, and 

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

 perhaps all eruptive difeafes attended with fever ; as the q 

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

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

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

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

 grains of calomel repeated every day during the eruptive fever, 

 fo as to induce three or four ftools, contribute to abate inflam- 

 mation ; and is believed by fome to have a fpecific effect on the 

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



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

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

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

 to the acrimony of the matter beneath the hard fcabs, which 

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

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

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

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

 of the fecondary fever, and were fo little marked, that one of 

 them, who was a young lady, almoft entirely preferred her 

 beauty. Perhaps mercurial plafters, or cerates, made without 

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

 venting the marks, and efpecially if applied early in the difeafe, 

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

 it appears from the experiments of Van Woenfel, that calomel 

 or corrofive fublimate, triturated with variolous matter, incapaci- 

 tates it from giving the difeafe by inoculation. Calomel or 

 fublimate given as an alterative for ten days before inoculation, 

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



render 



