DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 297 
of vaccination, is still unsettled, and is likely to be for all time. 
Our own opinion is that as long as it is kept out of the colonies 
there is no need for vaccination, buti.as the law requires it, we 
think it as well to comply; see that it is vaccination, and 
not simply inoculation. Taking matter from one child to 
another has been the cause of much mischief. Diseases, such 
as syphilis, consumption, or tuberculosis, the cause of 
consumption, as well as other skin diseases, it is affirmed even 
by doctors, have been transmitted in this way. If itis true 
Dr. Jenner did discover a means of lessening this great 
scourge. It was vaccination with the cow-pox lymph, or 
matter that he advocated. Ifthe Government compel people 
to get their children vaccinated, let parents see to it that it is 
this kind and not the human matter it is done with. 
Small-pox has been truly called “the scourge of the 
human race,” and is supposed by some to have been known in 
all civilized countries from time immemorial. The disease is 
divided into two kinds—distinct and confluent. In the former 
the eruptions are single and separated ; in the latter they ran 
together. ‘The latter is the more dangerous, arising from the 
fact of the greater degree of putridity or virulence in the body. 
The symptoms are so well known that few with any experience 
can possibly mistake them. There is a dull, listless, and 
drowsy appearance, with loss of appetite and great weariness, 
sometimes three or four days before the eruptions begin to 
present themselves. The pulse-is- quick, with chilliness, 
succeeded by fever. At first the pocks or pustules present the 
appearance of flea-bites on the face, arms, and breast. There 
is redness in the eyes, pains in the limbs, and sometimes. 
fainting and vomiting. From the appearance of the pustules, 
generally about the fourth day to the eleventh, they 
pass through different stages, first filling gradually with a 
whitish matter, which changes as it advances to a yellow tint. 
In more violent cases they turn brown, with little black spots 
in the middle. This is an unfavourable sign, particularly if 
the tongue be covered with a thick brown crust, and cold 
