.200 Epidemics. 



calls the pimples and sores phlyctsena and ulcers : " The 

 skin reddish or livid, and covered with minute phlyctaena 

 and ulcers." (Paulus Agincta, Vol. II., page 279, Sydenham 

 Society's Edition.) 



Here is a disease of which its counterpart cannot be 

 found in modern times. In one point it is evidently near 

 to small-pox the livid skin from laboured respiration, 

 arising chiefly from the state of the throat, with the small 

 pimples and sores, in different stages of ripeness ; the 

 marked delirium which mostly accompanies this disease ; 

 its order of progress from the head to the feet, as is the case in 

 most eruptive diseases of an infectious character, as measles, 

 -scarlatina, and small-pox, etc. ; vomiting and bowel affec- 

 tions being occasionally very marked, and trying symptoms, 

 or rather conditions of the disease ; and, as a finale, where 

 recovery takes place, the occasional loss of sight. On the 

 other hand, mortification of the fingers, toes, and pudenda 

 no more belong to small-pox than does phlegmasia dolens 

 to typhus fever or croup. 



Again, the duration of the disease is too short for variola, 

 when it proves fatal. 



What can the true etiology of this disease be ? Conjecture 

 can alone be given, but no positive dictum, unless it be in 

 the highest degree of a presumptive and ignorant nature. 



Suffer fools to speak, as it gives the wise an opportunity 

 of correcting and setting matters straight, after they have 

 been all disordered by consummate folly. 



For years an idea has presented itself that diseases occa- 

 sionally converge, as in syphilis, as here given, and that occa- 

 sionally they diverge or fork outwards from a given centre. 



Rhases and Avicenna, and all the Arabian physicians, 

 viewed measles and small-pox as having a common origin in 

 different conditions of the bile, but both had their origin in 

 the bile ; and small-pox and measles were always considered 



