The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1870-01-21
SMALLPOX.
BY AN EMINENT PHYSICIAN.

It may safely be affirmed that there is
no single disease in the long catalogue of
human pestilences that has created great
er havoc and been more justly dreaded
than small pox-pdri0ld. Other conta-
gious diseases have slain their thousands,
but smallpox has slain its tens of thou
sands. 1t has destroyed armies, raised
sieges, and scattered whole tribes and
communities of people. The barbarian
devoutly sacrifices to its deifed represen-
tation when it appears, and the Christian
fees as from the presence of death.
The date of the first appearance Of
small pox is doubtful. There is tradition
in the East that it was first derived from
the camel; but there is no proof of the
truth of the statement The sore bOils"
of Job have been attributed to smallpox
but foolishly. There is no evidence even
that the Greek and Roman physicians
knew of this disease. Procopius, who
lived in the middle of the sixth century,
gives graphic account of disease close
ly resembling smallpox, which began A.
d. 544, in Egypt, and spread to Constan-
tinopole. In A. D. $50, the year of the
birth of 1fohammed, an Abyssinian army
was compelled to raise the siege of Mecca
by pestilence very like small -pox, which
created terrible mortality. The first
medical writer who gave an authentic
description of the disease was Rhazes, an
Arabian physician, who wrote about $40.
From that period the pestilence has bad
many historians, and we have no difficulty
in tracing its progress from time to time,
and estimating the extent of its ravages
It has spread most widely where there
have been the largest movements among
| nations; as in the conquests of the Arabs
and Saracens, during the crusades, in the
emigration of the Spaniards to America,
ETC.
Wherever it appeared in those early Pc
RODS, it was regarded as an avenging
| angel. Whole continents were decimated,
and some nations were almost completely
| annihilated. 1t is estimated that Al, 600, :
600 of the people of Europe died of small
pox in the one hundred years preceding
the introduction of vaccination. As late
as 1720, 10000 persons died of small
pox in Paris 1t did not respect rank or
condition. The prohigate Louis XIV, of
France, died of it, abandoned by cOurtiers
| and friends. The wife of the King of Bur-
gundy was attacked by it, and accused her
physicians of poisoning her; she re-
quested their execution, which was
carried into effect over her tomb. In
general the sick were abandoned by their
most devoted friends, and left to die or re-
cover alone.
The mode of propagation of small. pox
long remained doubtful. That it could be
communicated by actual contact Ito touch)
of the sick with the well, or by contagion,
was early apparent, and it was soon dem
onstrated that the sick infected the air Of
the room in which they lay. It became
in time well established, therefore, that
the disease was both contagious and infec
| tious. It was also discovered that the bed
and clothing of the sick absorbed the
poison, and afterward gave it off when ex
posed to the air, and thus communicated
the disease. These clothes or other arti
cles were called fonites, from their power
of retaining the poison. The porous wall!
of the room also received the virus, anC
would give it to the next occupant. 81
subtitle, indeed, did the poison seem to be
and so many sickened without know
contact with the sick, that it came to b,
believed that the disease was communicated
by sight and by hearing, and even by tn,
Imagination. Fa
More recent investigations have led Il
the adoption of the theory that the human
subject is born with certain materials il
his blood or tissues, which the poisons o
smallpox, scarletfever, or measles &C
upon as yeast acts upon the dough-name
ly, as ferment. In this fermentation, tn,
peculiar poison multiplies itself infinite
", and shows itself in the efflorescence o.
eruption. But it destroys wholly or il
part the original material upon which i
acted: when it entirely destroys this ma
terial, the disease can never repeat itsel
in the same person; when the fermenta
ton is partial, the disease may recur
This theory explains also the nature of thu
process of incubation and vaccination
the two great preventive measures o
mall-pox-HearM and Home.