Some observations on the varioloid disease, which has lately prevailed in Edinburgh, and on the identity of chicken-pox and modified small-pox, in a letter addressed to Dr Duncan, junior / by John Thomson.

  • John Thomson
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some observations on the varioloid disease, which has lately prevailed in Edinburgh, and on the identity of chicken-pox and modified small-pox, in a letter addressed to Dr Duncan, junior / by John Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    small pox or cow-pock, or had had the disease communicated to them by inoculation. In watching the appearances and progress of the eruption in these persons, I was tor a considerable time inclined to regard it as chicken-pox, till having an opportunity of observing its severity and fatality in those who had not under- gone small-pox or cow-pock, I was compelled to abandon that idea, and to believe that in all the different forms under which this eruption has appeared, it could be no other than the small- pox. This epidemic has attacked three different classes of persons, 1 it, Those who had passed through small pox ; Those w'ho had had cow~pock 5 and, 3dly, Those who had had neither small- pox nor cow-pock, and in all of these it has appeared to possess some common characters. It has usually commenced in a vesi- cular form, or in a papular speedily becoming vesicular, and has become pustular only in some cases in its progress. The pustules have appeared sometimes with, and sometimes without a central depression. The eruption has been irregular in size and form, as well as in the place of its first appearance, and in most instances it has appeared to occupy only the surface of the skin. It has in almost all instances come out in successive crops, some of which have appeared on the body after the eruption was at the height on the face. It has in general appeared even in severe cases to have arrived at the height on the face by the 6th day of the eruption, and in the milder not unfrequentiy by the 4th or 5th day. The fluid contained in the vesicles and pustules has in a great number of instances appeared to be lymph rather than pus, even to a late period of the disease, and has generally dried into horny scabs covering tubercular elevations of the skin, which, in several instances, have been followed by pits or depressions of that texture. In the decline of the eruption, vesications upon an inflamed basis of a greater or less extent, have frequently appeared upon the extremities, generally filled with lymph, but in a few instances with air; and, in some instances, small abscesses have formed in the subcutaneous texture. This eruption has rarely had any of the smell peculiar to small-pox. It has produced but very little temporary blindness, and has seldom been accompanied by the symptoms of secondary fever. In four of the eight patients who had had small-pox, this epidemic has appeared in a highly aggravated and somewhat malignant form. Comparatively but lew, I believe, have ever recovered of primary natural small-pox who have had them in number and form similar to those described in Nos. 12, 13, and ]4, of Mr Hennen’s cases. The disease in his 4th case,