632 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1780. 



His rommentator, however, Van Swieten, supports a different opinion, in 

 liis Comment, vol. 5. He quotes a case from the Phil. Trans., vol. 28, 

 of a woman, who, having just gone through a mild sort of small-yjox, was, by 

 means of a strong dose of purging physic thrown into a miscarriage, and 

 brought forth a dead female child, whose whole body was covered with variolous 

 pustules full of ripe matter ; but this history is founded only on the relation 

 of a midwife to a clergyman, and therefore not absolutely to be depended 

 on as accurately stated: however, it is more thnii probable, that there was 

 a case as described ; and that tliere were really eruptions on the skin of the 

 child similar to the small-pox. Van Swieten likewise mentions what Mauriceau 

 relates of himself. This author testifies, that he had often heard his father 

 and mother say, that the latter, when big with him, and very near her time 

 of delivery, had a painful attendance on one of her children, who died of the 

 small-pox on the 7th day of the eruption ; and that on the day following the 

 death of this child, Mauriceau came into the world, bringing with him 5 or 6 

 true pustules of the small-pox. 



It does not appear however, from this recital, whether Mauriceau passed 

 through life free from any posterior infection ; but admitting that this eruption 

 of Mauriceau's was truly the small-pox, yet I should very much doubt of his 

 having caught it from the child who died of it: as it should seem that the pus- 

 tules of Mauriceau were of the same date with those of the child who died. 

 Van Swieten appeals to a more recent case, which had been reported to him by 

 persons of great credit, and is recorded in the Phil. Trans, vol. 46, p. 235. 

 " A woman, big with child, having herself long ago had the small-pox, very 

 assiduously nursed a maid servant during the whole process of this disease. At 

 the proper time she brought forth a healthy female child, in whose skin Dr. 

 Watson asserted, that he discovered evident marks of the small-pox, which she 

 must have gone through in the womb ; and the same physician pronounced, that 

 this child would be free from future infection. After 4 years her brother was 

 inoculated ; and Dr. Watson obtained permission of the parents to try the same 

 experiment on the girl. The operation was performed on both children in the 

 same manner ; and the pus used in both cases was taken from the same patient. 

 The event, however, was different ; for the boy had the regular eruption, and 

 got well ; but the girl's arm did not inflame nor suppurate. On the ] 0th day 

 from the insertion of the matter, she turned pale suddenly, was languid for 2 

 days, and afterwards was very well. In the neighbourhood of the incision there 

 appeared a pustule like those pustules that we sometimes observe in persons who, 

 having had the disease, attend patients ill of the small pox." 



In the epistles of T. Bartholinus, cent. 2, p. (382, is the folloxving history. 

 " A poor woman, aged 38 years, pregnant, and now near the time of delivery, 



