Democratic messenger., 1881-03-19
SMALLPOX.

admitted to be specific contagion, the
nature of which medical research has
thus far failed to discover. No disease
is in all probability SO contagious A
prominent physician who has given
particular attention to it, and has had
very wide and varied experience in
its treatment, said, eighty years ago,
that he had never known single in
stance in which persons liable to SMALL
pox could pass any time with patient
in the same chamber without taking
the infection. There have been in
stances where the poisonous efluvium
has crossed river over 1900 feet
wide and affected ten out of twelve
workmen on the other side. The contag-
ion acts through the air, by contact
with the skin or by incubation, and
may be impaired by corpse which
has not been touched. Just what
portions Of the diseased body are con-
tagious are not precisely known, but
that the contents of the pustules and
dried scabs are SO has been definitely
ascertained. Medical opinion differs
as to the period when the disorder be-
gins and ceases to be contagious, but
it is prudent to believe it capable of
self-propogation as soon as the fehrile
symptoms have declared themselves.
How soon the pa tient ceases to be
dangerous has not been determined
accurately; but the stability ofthe con-
tagious principle may be inferred from
the fact that clothing will retain it for
months and for years, it is said, when
confined. Smallpox appears. like all
contagious exanthemata, in epidemic
form at irregular, and, as far as can be
learned, at capricious intervals.
After an extraordinary exemption,
perhaps for years, a district may be
suddenly invaded by it, where it will
continue to prevail for longer or
shorter period, and then spontaneously
disappear, not to be revived for pro-
tracted period Epidemics differ
much in intensity, and isolated cases
are generally milder than where the
distemper RACES Race has a good
deal to do with the severity of this
disease, the dark races, notably the ne
! gro and our aboriginals, being very
susceptible to it, and showing very
little power to resist it. Although vac
cination is generally acknowledged to
be preventive some physicians have
recently declared it to be but partial
ly effective. Small pox, while it contin-
ues to be very dangerous, is far less so
than it used to be. At one time the
proportion of deaths to cases was one
to four. 1t is more apt to prove fatal
in childhood and old age than in the
intervening period. In former times
the eruption was believed to be an eff
fort Of nature to get rid of noxious
matter, and stimulating and heating
measures were therefore adopted to
that end. The history of the loath-
some disease is rather obscure. There
is no evidence that the Greek or Ara
bian writers Of the sixth century knew
anything of it The first accurate ac-
count of it was given by Rhazes, an
Arabian physician, who lived in the
early part of the tenth century. 1t
seems to have reached England 100
years later, and after the Crusades, il
prevailed in the temperate regions OF
Africa, but not in the far North until
Some time later. Early in the sixteenth
century it was carried from Europe
to the New World, where it ragged fur
iously, killing $500, 900 of people in
Mexico alone. In I7o7 it was intro
! duced into Iceland, and nearly one
fourth OF the entire population fell
victims to it, and, 26 years later, it
nearly depopulated Greenland. These
examples corroborate the well founded
opinion that contagious diseases are
always most virulent when they first
occur in country or region that they
have not before visited.
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