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.

  • Thomson, John, 1765-1846.
Date:
1818
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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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    chicken pox. In this case it is evident that thirty-five of sixty- four of the patients who took the varioloid disease in the natural way, would have passed twice through small pox. 5thly, After Dr Heberden had distinguished chicken pox from small pox, and had convinced himself and the medical world, that these diseases arise from two contagious poisons, spe- cifically distinct from each other, it seems probable, that the cases of modified secondary small-pox whicn may have occurred, must have been described as cases of chicken-pox, since we no- where find any hint of the possible co-existence of these two diseases, or of the danger in which medical practitioners are of confounding them together, and also, since we find authors of so great authority as Dr Monro Primus, and Dr Heberden, affirming that small-pox after small pox is an event of rare occurrence. The former says, “ My corre- spondents almost all agree with me in alSrming, that they never saw any attacked by true small-pox after they had the true kind, whether communicated by art or by nature and the latter, “ It would be no extravagant assertion to say, that here, in England, not above one in ten thousand patients is pretended to have had it twice, and wherever it is pretended, it will always be as likely that? the persons about the patient were mistaken, and supposed that to be the small-pox, which was an eruption of a different nature, as that there was such an extraordinary exception to what we are sure is so general a law.” It therefore appears to me, 6thly, That it now remains to be investigated, in what proportion of the cases, which have been denominated chicken-pox, it is probable the disease has been secondary modified small-pox; and, upon the supposition of these being two distinct diseases, by what marks we are in future to distinguish them from each other. I can only repeat, that, in a great proportion of the cases of small-pox which have occur- red to my observation after small-pox, as well as in those cases that had been modified by previous cow-pock inoculation, I have not been able to distinguish them from chicken pox, but have found every symptom in them to correspond most accurately with the descriptions of the varieties of chicken-pox, which have been given by Heberden, Willan, Bateman, and others. I am, there- fore, satisfied, that previously to the discovery of the cow-pock, secondary small-pox being a disease frequent in its occurrence, must have stood in nearly the same relation, to primary small- pox, that modified small-pox now stand in to cow-pock; and my present impression is, that it may be, that chicken-pox and modified small-pox are one and the same disease. I am not aware of any accurate or extensive series of observa-