The Shasta courier., 1862-04-12
The Small Pox.

We make the following extracts from pa
per in the San Jose Tribune, contributed to
that journal by DR., J. n Brown, of San
Jose:
Small pox is an irruptive fever, more likely
to attack children and young persons than
those more advanced in age yet there is no
| period in life at which an individual is en-
tirely exempt from it /; but if there is any
time in which the susceptibility is greatest,
it is probably during the extremes of age. 1t
usually makes its appearance about nine days
from the time of infection-the atient during
this stage of incubation generally enjoying
ordinary health. The immediate approach
of the disease is announced by the sudden
appearance of chill, more or less severe,
which frequently comes on after the middle
of the day. The chill is immadiately follow
ed by severe frontal headache, with pain
in the stomach, sometimes attended with
vomiting or nausea, pain in the back or
joints, accompanied with high fever, which
continues without much, if any, inte, mission,
until the third day, when the irruption first
makes its appearance upon the forehead and
face in the form of small red blotches or pim-
Piles, devoid of pain, and feeling hard to the
touch. These pimples, at first scarcely ele-
waited above the level of the skin, gradually
enlarge and increase in prominence, until
about the third day after their irruption,
when small watery transparent vesicles (of
little blisters) appear on their summit these
visieles, at first clear, gradually become
clouded opalcolored, and finally, at the
eighth day of the irruption, or the eleventh
ed by livid areola or circle, and their cen
trail portion becomes purulent and slightly
depressed or pitted. 1t is at this period that
the fever, which had greatly subsidized after
the irruption was fully formed, now returns
with considerable violence; this is called
secondary fever, or fever of mdturation. The
pustuIcs now gradually become darker, and
at about the sixteenth day, turn into drv
scabs, which are thrown off, first from the
face, where they were first for,ned. and after
wards from the trunk and limbs, and lastly
from the hands and feet, learing pits or de-
pressions which remain permanently through
life, Daring the develc cpment of the irrup-
ton, there is often tendency TO profuse sweat
ing, and in children we often perceive epilep-
tic convulsions or . fits" From the eighth
day until the eleventh day The face, especial
ly about the eyes, is often much swollen the
charge occurs from the mouth. The days
the first, third, fifth, eighth and eleventh
the patient may die, however, at any time
during the course of the disease.
The small pox is divided into tyo varieties,
called the discfete, where the pustules are
distinct, not running into each other and
The confuent, in which they coalesce or run
together-often forming one almost continu-
Gus scab, covering the entire surface of the
body. In this form of the disease the fever
is always higher, or of a typhoid type, the
danger greater, and the mortality often
frightful; but if the patient survives, he of.
ton remains blind and greatly disfgured for
life.
A disease may be contagious and not in
fection. and rice rersa. The poison of small
pox will exert its influence ordinarily to the
distance of one hundred feet. A moist and
warm state of the atmosphere is more favor
able for the propagation Of it than cold and
dry one High winds often stop epidemics
The disease is seldom carried in the clothes
of persons visiting patients infected with 1t.
unless they carry some of the matter away
on them. Physicians attending small pox
patients, if not protected, are as liable to con-
tract the disease as any one else; yet ,hey
do not convey it to their families unless they
ter on their clothing Gum camphor carried
about the person may have some powers of
preventing infection. The best means Of
preventing small pox from spreading, are:
to keep away from it; to avoid mixing with
large and unnecessary assemblages during
its preyalenoy; by requiring persons, who
may be infected, to quit their homes; if in
thickly settled districts, and go to the Pest
Houses provided for their comfort; and by
ventilating. or purifying, or destroying all
infected goods.
GENERAL SHELLY. on passing a review of