SMALL-POX. 347 



"A secondary eruption occasionally followed, of an erysip- 

 elatous character. There were no distinct suppurating 

 pustules ; but there was a more serous or watery secretion 

 which soon died. 



" This was the regular and the fortunate course of the 

 disease ; but too frequently there was a fktal irregularity 

 about it. Almost at the commencement there was excessive 

 fever, and prostration of strength and fetid breath, and 

 detachment of large patches of the wool, and more rapid and 

 bounding or inappreciable pulse, and strange swellings about 

 the throat and head, and difficult deglutition. There was also 

 a discharge of adhesive, spumy fluid from the mouth, and of 

 ichorous or thick, and yellow, or bloody, and fetid discharge 

 from the nostrUs, often completely occupying and obstructing 

 them. The respiration became not only laborious, but every 

 act of it could be heard at a considerable distance — there 

 was a distressing cough — the lips, the nostrils, the eyelids, 

 the head, and every limb became swelled, the pustules ran 

 together, and formed large masses over the face, and the 

 articulations : diarrhea, that bade defiance to every medicine 

 ensued, and the end was not far off." 



The symptoms of the disease, after it appeared in England, 

 are thus described by Mr. Thomas Wells, of Norwich, in the 

 Norwich Mercury* : — " The leading syniptoms of small pox 

 are, a separation of the infected animal from the flock, a 

 peculiar arching of the back, a drooping of the ears, a closing 

 of the eyelids, amounting in some cases almost to blindness, 

 and a pustular eruption, extending more or less over all parts 

 of the body, but particularly' those destitute of wool or 

 covered with hair only; such for instance, as the cheeks, 

 the skin inside the arms and thighs, the under surface of 

 the tail, udder, etc." 



The treatment of the malady, given by Messrs. Youatt 

 and Spooner, (taken doubtless from Continental works on the 

 subject,) is to separate out the diseased sheep from the flock, 

 give them good food, protect them from wet and cold, open 

 their bowels with Epsom salts during the febrile state, and 

 afterward administer small doses of the salts with mild 

 tonics, such as ginger and gentian. " Common salt was a 

 favorite and very useful medicine, on account of its anti- 

 septic and tonic properties." 



The disease raged in Flanders, and I give the treatment 



* I find it republished in the London Farmer's Magazine. 



