The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1870-01-13
Small.POX.
by AN EMINENT PHYSICIAN.

| 1t 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-UariOla 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 deitied represen-
tation when it appears, and the Christian
fees as from the presence of death.
The date of the first appearance of
smallpox is doubtful. There is a 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 a disease close
ly resembling smallpox, which began A.
ID. 544, in Egypt, and spread to Constan-
birth of Mohammed, an Abyssinian army
was compelled to raise the siege of Mecca
by pestilence very like smallpox, which
created terrible mortality. The first
medical writer who gave an authentic
description of the disease was Rhazes, an
Arabian physician, who wrote about 910
From that period the pestiience has had
many historians, and we have no difficulty
in tracing its progress from time to time,
and estimating the extent of its ravages
1t 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 40 ,0O0,-
900 of the people of Europe died of small
pOx in the one hundred years preceding
the introduction of vaccination. AS late
as 172O, 10000 persons died of small
pox in Paris. 1t did not respect rank or
condition. The prOfigate Louis Nv, 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 1t could be
communicated by actual contact Ito touch) }
of the sick with the we'll, 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. 1t became
in time we'll established, therefore, that
the disease was both contagious and infec
tious. 1t 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 .foanttes, from their power
of retaining the poison. The porous walls
of the room also received the virus, and
would give it to the next occupant. So
subtitle, indeed, did the poison seem to be,
and so many sickened without known
contact with the sick, that it came to be
believed that the disease was communicated
by sight and by hearing, and even by the
Imagination.
More recent investigations have led to
the adoption of the theory that the human
subject is born with certain materials in
his blood or tissues, which the poisons of
smallpox. scalet-fever, or measles act
upon as yeast acts upon the dough-name-
ly, as ferment. In this fermentation, the
peculiar poison multiplies itself infinite
ly, and shows itself in the effiorescence or
eruption. But it destroys wholly or in
part the original material upon which it
acted: when it entirely destroys this ma
terial, the disease can never repeat itself
! in the same person; when the fermenta-
ton is partial, the disease may recur.
This theory explains also the nature of the
process of inoculation and vaccination
the two great preventive measures OF
small l-pox-HedrMd and Home