Description of the distinct, confluent, and inoculated smallpox, varioloid disease, cow pox, and chicken pox / By John D. Fisher.

  • Fisher, John D. (John Dix), 1797-1850.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Description of the distinct, confluent, and inoculated smallpox, varioloid disease, cow pox, and chicken pox / By John D. Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/122 (page 17)
    permit a portion of their fluid contents to ooze out. The matter which es¬ capes, coming in contact with the air, soon dries, and little dark crusts are speedily formed on the tops of the pustules. These crusts, which are at first very thin, and of a light yellow hue, increase in size and assume a brown orange colour ; they resemble little scales, many of which fall off and are replaced by new ones. The pustules which remain unbroken become slightly contracted, and their fluid gradually concretes into a solid form. Both the broken and unbroken pustules now grow dry, hard and brown. After a few days the crusts and the dried and hardened pustules become de¬ tached and fall off, leaving scars in the skin of considerable depth. These scars are at first red, but soon change to a dark purple colour, which they retain for many weeks. They at length, however, either disappear entirely, or else become more apparent, sinking deeper as it were into the cutis, and exhibit smooth and polished surfaces during the remainder of life. Desic¬ cation, as well as suppuration, first commences in the pustules on the face, and then in those on the neck and other parts of the body, following the order in which the eruption broke out. The pustules on the feet and hands are, therefore, the last to dry up and fall off, and are usually two or three days later in desiccating and becoming detached than those on the face and body. As soon as desiccation commences in the pustules the febrile symptoms abate, and vanish as the process of scabbing proceeds. The areolae surrounding the pustules and the swelling and turgescence of the parts on which they exist, decline and soon disappear. The scabs fall from the face from the twelfth to the fifteenth day after the appearance of the erup¬ tion, and from the fifteenth to the eighteenth day from the commencement of the febrile attack. In the course of two or three days more, the scabs on the other parts of the body fall off. Such are the usual symptoms and appearances of the small pox in its distinct form. These, however, are not always uniform in their character. The fever and constitutional affec¬ tion are sometimes much milder, and sometimes considerably more severe than has been described. The pustules are only few, not exceeding ten or a 5