An improvement in the pathology and treatment of small-pox : upon principles which are applicable to all sthenic diseases.

  • Robert Stevens
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An improvement in the pathology and treatment of small-pox : upon principles which are applicable to all sthenic diseases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    cessive inflammation which attends the sup- puration of a full eruption, just as in the case of an extensive burn or scald. The vital power is during these states of inflammatory excitement used up, or burnt out too quickly as it were. Its undue expenditure at first constitutes the severity of the precursory symptoms which is always followed by a full eruption ; and, with- al, the patient is left the less capable of standing against the excessive inflammation which is sure to accompany the ripening of a full erup- tion. Therefore the grand opportunity is at the commencement of the disease, when by controlling the excitability, not only the nervous power will be kept in reserve, but a light form of small-pox will ensue. I am not aware that any one has taken the trouble to account for the disposition to boils after the severe forms of small-pox. It ap- pears to be quite a pathological curiosity. It is never a consequence of the benign form of small-pox, but always of the severe. 1 never knew a severe case of small-pox which was not followed by boils. It is caused by portions of the cutis and subjacent tissues which have lost their vitality from the severity of local inflam- mation ; these, like other foreign matter, excite the suppurative inflammation for their discharge
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