Small-Pox.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 215, 6 August 1884, Page 2

Small-Pox.

The following extract from Dr Biistowe's well-known work on the " Ppaisfcice of Medicine" may not be uninteresting - at the present moment : — Small-pox, or variola, is a specific fever, spreading by contagion, and characterised by a papular eruption which becomes pustular, and attains its full development on the eleventh day of tho disease. Small-pox was one of the most formidable of pestilences, but the disease was robbed of many of its terrors by the praptice of inoculation, which was introduced into England early m the eighteenth century by Lady Mary Worthy ' Montague, who had seen it done m Constantinople. At the enJ of the eighteenth century Jennor discovered the protective influence of vaccination, since the adoption of which small-pox has become a comparatively rare and unimportant affection. It still, however, maintain! 5 all its old virulence when it attacks those who are not protociod by vaccination or by a previous attack of the disease, and all its old epidemic violence when it is in* troduced among susceptible communities. Occasionally people havo the disease a second, or even a third time, but this is very rare. Darkskinned races and residents m warm climates are supposed to suffer from it more severely. It originates solely m contagiqn, and the cqntagiqn may l-e spread m various ways. Sm'tll-po^ is ono of the most, contagious diseases known. The confluent form of variola ijj thir most severe. The greatest care should bo exercised m vaccinating, and no one but a properly qualified rnedipal n^an sjiqulcf be. allowed to do it. •••'.■■•