Domestic medicine ... / [William Buchan].

  • Buchan, William, 1729-1805
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine ... / [William Buchan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    544/618 (page 512)
    ,'■,1-2 OF THE COW-POX. hours to nearly double its former size, and on the tenth day, or sometimes sooner, is an inch and a half, often two inches, in diameter. This inflammation, or efflorescence, which seems to be of the erysipelatous kind, when it takes place to a sufficient extent, may be considered as a pretty cer- tain test of the matter having been genuine, and of its hav- ing produced the real vaccine disease. ‘ Hitherto the vesicle has been most elevated at the mar- gin, and has had an evident depression in the centre ; but about the ninth day the depression begins to fill up, and on the tenth or eleventh, the whole surface is either plain, or the centre is more elevated than the margin. ‘ Some time between the eighth and tenth days, an erup- tion of small pimples, or rather a rash, now and then ap- pears on different parts of the body, bearing a strong re- semblance to that which is frequently observed before the eruption of the inoculated small-pox. ‘ This rash is of no farther consequence than as it affords an additional proof of the disease having entered the consti- tution ; and it requires no particular medical treatment. ; ‘ On the eleventh day the vesicle has attained its full ma- turity ; and about this time, the virus contained in it is very similar to purulent matter ; it becomes less fluid than it was before, and also loses much of its activity, as is found to be the case on its being used. ‘ On the twelfth day the inflammation is much dimi- nished, leaving a slight degree of redness at the base of the vesicle, and an inflamed ring round the circumference of the areola, while the intermediate space is nearly of the same colour with the sound skin. ‘ This double ring, as it may be termed, is a distinctive mark of the real cow-pox, provided it takes place after the symptoms already enumerated ; although, as it is not per- ceptible in every case, especially where the inflammation has been more severe than usual, the want of it does not necessarily imply that the disease is of a spurious kind. The fluid in the vesicle now begins to dry up, the cuticle to se- parate, and the crust, which before was brown, acquires a darker hue, and becomes more extensive. ‘ On the twelfth or thirteenth day, the external margin of the areola completely disappears ; and on the fifteenth, scarcely a vestige of inflammation is perceived.