A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district.

  • Kinnis, John, 1794?-1853.
Date:
MDCCCXXXV [1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    18/118 (page 4)
    lllcciS;.?' , ^'^ ?y confidence would rcqnire a more h u /ffl ''''^ '^■P^'' f'^^^''^^' '^V become ir.pregnatedl « i . . f!'r ^''^'■e- from his body, in s.flr.eient -activi y to eom- ' d . PP panis to ascertain the sphere of variolous contagion .Md ^eems Hid.ned to tir.nk that it does not exceed fifteen fecfin cWert. be al owed to have any weigh,, it will appear n ti e Jghe.^ hino to T the patient's contiguity to the hospital, had any ^ ndi. ^''^^'^ At the end of the aZ ?ox na ie r 1 ?f ^^^^'^'^'y '^'•'voled to the accommodation ofsmull- f kPnL ' I^'^''^' ^'^^ f^--^^ appearance of the cJ ease the w.ngs on each side ol the back yard marked P were io md o be amply ..ufficicnt for them, and no patient whatever was buttered to pasi= or even to enter tiie back veranda, until a late period xvlu:.r\. regarded admissions into that hospital), l eu iv n ''T ^^-l^^l ^vas opened for convalescents. Ti,e distanci bet v,.U Hie back and front verandas (B and I), including the breadth ot both. ,s about sixty feet, and the distance of the patient's house Horn the middle, of the veranda, corresponding to the hosi.ital door ahout sixty leet more. Now even supposing (what is not at all pro! Uable) tnat the little girl, prompted by childish curiosity, had entered I he front veranda, and been held up to look over the lower half of the door (this being kept locked), she could have approached to no patient nearerthan fifty feet, which is the radius of a circle, exceeding ahnost seven times in diameter the one conjectured by the writer re- lened to, to limit (he sphere of variolous coiUagion. The patient that was attacked in tlie Colpitty had been in hospital for another complaint, from lr2th November to'lOih December, and ■was attacked, fifteen days after his discharge, with the febrile symptoms of small-pox ; which occurred in a modified form after vaccination We may undoubtedly ascribe this patient's attack to his previous re^ sidence m hospital ; but it is the only case of the ten that can be directly traced to it. If to this particular notice of the earliest detected cases, we add that, in tlie progress of the disease, when (he public alteution was fixed vfon it, many cases were successfully concealed, some until per- fect recovery, as tliat of a child at Kehelwatte near Paiitura, which occurred in the month of January and communicated the disease, in its worst form, to f-ix other individuals; a case in the Fish bazar, ■vvhicli was discovered on the 15lh February,—having begun exactly one month before the first case in the same (piarter already mentioned.— • For an Hccounl of some e^pelill)enls, iiisliluteil willi ilie view of clelenuiiiiiig poiiil, see A|)|)(»ii(lix No. XV. tSce Good's Si udij of Medicine 3d f(I. v. III. p. ] 12, nnd Di'. Gregory on Small' pox, in Cjcloiiciliu of l^rutlicul Mediciiip, Deecrabcr 1833,