A dictionary of practical medicine: comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases, morbid structures, and the disorders especially incidental to climates, to the sex, and to the different forms of life : with numerous prescriptions for the medicines recommended, a classification of diseases according to pathological principles, a copious bibliography, with references, and an appendix of approved formulae : the whole forming a library of pathology and practical medicine and a digest of medical literature (Volume 8).
- James Copland
- Date:
- 1834-59
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A dictionary of practical medicine: comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases, morbid structures, and the disorders especially incidental to climates, to the sex, and to the different forms of life : with numerous prescriptions for the medicines recommended, a classification of diseases according to pathological principles, a copious bibliography, with references, and an appendix of approved formulae : the whole forming a library of pathology and practical medicine and a digest of medical literature (Volume 8). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
![own daughters to the new process in 1722. Vol- taire, in 1727, was the first writer in France to direct popular opinion in favour of inoculation. His observations on the subject may even now be read with interest. He remarks, that most of the 20,000 who died of small-pox in Paris in 1720 would have been saved if inoculation had been then introduced. [The practice of inoculation was introduced into the United States as early as the year 1721. Dr. William Douglass, of Boston, in his Prac- tical Essay concerning the Small-pox (1730, p. 38), remarks, that The Circassian method of procuring the small-pox by variolous pus, applied externally to fresh cutaneous incisions, lately in- troduced in Great Britain and New England, seems to bid fair to alleviate the crisis as to the quantity and deleterious nature of the inflamma- tions and suppurations ; but it is not an absolute certain remedy against a bad sort. Much of the same nature is what Dr. Williams says has been an immemorial custom in some parts of Wales, called buying of the small-pox: the person pro- cures a few fresh pocky scabs, and holds them in the hollow of the hand a considerable time ; about ten or twelve days thereafter the person sickens, &c. In another tract, by Dr. Nathaniel Will- iams, of Boston (Boston, 1752), are contained particular directions for the practice of inocula- tion, and he states that fifty out of sixty-five whom he inoculated were sitting up and walking about soon after the eruption appeared ; and that but a single patient, a child of eight weeks, died, of all whom he inoculated.] 10. The first ten years of the career of inoc- ulation in this country, Dr. Gregory observes, were singularly unfortunate. It fell into bad hands; it was tried on the worst possible sub- jects, and practised in the most injudicious man- ner. The consequence was that it soon fell into disrepute. The pulpit, too, sounded the alarm ; and, conducted as inoculation then was, it was a questionable improvement. A new era in this practice arose in 1746. The Small-pox Hospital was founded for the extension of inoculation among the poor. In 1754, the College of Phy- sicians put forth a strong recommendation of the practice, and Mead and De la Condamine wrote treatises in favour of it. In 1763, the practice was especially adopted by Mr. R. Sutton and his two sons, who inoculated with great skill and suc- cess. In 1775, a dispensary was opened in London for the gratuitous inoculation of the poor at their own houses; but the institution failed, chiefly through the opposition of Mr. Dimsdale, who had succeeded the Suttons, and fully equal- led them in popularity and success. The Small- pox Hospital then took up the plan of promiscu- ous inoculation, which was carried on to an im- mense extent between the years 1790 and 1800. In 179S, Dr. Jenner announced the discovery of vaccination. In May, 1808, the inoculation of out-patients was discontinued at the Small-pox Hospital. In June, 1822, inoculation was dis- continued to in-patients. On the 23d July, 1840, the practice of inoculation, the introduction of which has conferred immortality on the name of Lady Mary W. Montague, which had been sanc- tioned by the College of Physicians, which had saved the lives of many thousands during the greater part of the preceding century, was de- clared illegal by the English Parliament. All of- fenders were to be sent to prison ; and it was even provided that any attempt to produce small-pox by inoculation, even though unsuccessful, includ- ing, of course, the testing of vaccinated subjects, was an offence at law.—(Op. cit., p. 39.) 11. II. Description of Natural Small-pox. —This malady presents several forms, depending chiefly on its grades of severity, these grades arising from the intensity or concentration of the infecting miasm ; from the susceptibility, consti- tution, or habit of body, of the person infected ; and from the extent to which vital organs or sur- faces are affected by the morbid actions developed by the morbific leaven. The state of the eruption more especially fixes our attention, inasmuch as it disorders the functions of an important organ, as it is a suppurative inflammation of a surface which induces serious sympathies in the econo- my, as it is an indication of the state and charac- ter of the vital powers, of the vascular action, and even of the blood itself, and as it most visibly and tangibly manifests the form or variety of the dis- ease, suggesting not merely the diagnosis and prognosis, but also the indications of cure. As respects the eruption, therefore, it may be distinct, corymbose, semi-confluent, or confluent, according to the number, grouping, or distribution of the pustules ; it may also be superficial, cellular, lim- ited to the cutaneous surface, or extended more or less to the mucous membranes, especially at the outlets of canals ; it may, moreover, be pap- ular, vesicular, pustular, ichorous, scorbutic, or sanious, or purplish, or even blackish, according to the changes taking place in it. As regards the type or character of the attendant fever, small-pox may be benignant, synochoid, petechial, malignant, or putro-adynamic. It may also be simple through- out its course, and it may be more or less compli- cated, or associated with a prominent affection of one or more important internal parts or vital or- gans, developed during the progress of the mala- dy. As will be rendered more apparent in the sequel, there is in general an intimate depend- ence of the state and appearance of the eruption upon the type and character of the fever, and of this latter upon the organic functions and the con- ditions of the blood. Whatever may be the form which the disease may assume, or however va- ried the associations of the states now enumerated may appear, small-pox presents certain stages which more particularly mark its course. These stages have been divided into, 1st, that of incu- bation ; 2d, that of invasion ; 3d, that of erup- tion ; 4th, that of suppuration ; and 5th, that of exsiccation. But some authors have distinguish- ed only three, namely, 1st, incubation ; 2d, mat- uration ; and 3d, decline. The stages may be divided into, 1st, the latent, precursory, or incu- bative ; 2d, the febrile, or the primary fever ; 3d, the period of eruption and development; 4th, the maturative or suppurative stage, or the period of secondary fever, desiccation, and decline. 12. i. Distinct, Benign, or Simple Small- pox.—This form of the disease is very frequent- ly met with in healthy constitutions, favoured by a pure air. It was that most frequently produced by inoculation, when this mode of communicating the disease was permitted. Between it, howev- er, and the confluent no very precise demarca- tion can be assigned, as the corymbose and the semi-confluent are mere approaches to this more severe form. In the distinct or benign states of small-pox there is no serious depression of the vital power, or contamination of the fluids or sol-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21111066_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
