The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-03-12
Small.pox-How the Disease is Trans.
mitted-Its Historical Ravages.

mitted-Its Historical Ravages.
THE cause of smallpox is universally
admitted to be specific eontagion, the
nature of which medical research has
thus far failed 20 discover. No disease
is, in all probability, so contagious. A
prominent physician who had given
particular attention to it, and had had
very wide and varied experience in its
treatment, said, eighty years ago. that
he had never known single instance in
which persons liable to smallpox could
pass any time with patient in the
chamber without taking the infection.
There have been instances where the
poisonous etlluvium has crossed river
1900 feet wide and effected ten out of
twelve workmen on the other side. The
contagion acts through the air, by con-
tact with the skin or by incubation, and
may be impaired by corpse which has
not been couched. just what products
of the diseased body are contagious are
not precisely known, but that the con-
tents of the postules and dried scabs are
so has been definitely ascertained. Med
ical opinion differs as to the period when
the disorder begins and ceases to be
contagious, but it is prudent to believe
it capable of self-propagation as soon as
the febrile symptoms have declared
themselves. How soon the patient
ceases to be dangerous has not been de-
termined accurately; but the stability of
the contagious 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 the contagious exanthemata, in
epidemic form at irregular, and, as far
as can be learned, at capricious, inter-
walls. After an extraordinary exemption,
perhaps for years, district may be
suddenly invaded by it, where it will
continue to prevail for longer
or shorter period, and then spon-
taneously disappear, not to be revived
for a protracted period. Epidemics
differ much in intensity, and isolated
cases are generally milder than where
the distemper RACES. Race has good
deal to do with the severity of this dis
ease, the dark races, notably the negro
and our aboriginals, being very suscepti-
bic to it, and showing very little power
to resist it. Although vaccination is
generally acknowledged to be pre-
ventive, some physicians have recently
declared it to be but partially effective.
| Smallpox, while it continues 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 effort of nature to
| get rid of noXious matter, and stimulat-
| ing and heating measures were therefore
| adopted to that end. The history of the
loathsome disease is rather obscure.
There is no evidence that the Greek or
Arabian writers of the sixth century
knew anything of it, The first accurate
account 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 nearly 100
years later, and, after the Crusades, it
! 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 furious
ly. killing 100000 of people in Mexico
alone. In 1907 it was introduced into
Iceland, and nearly one-fourth of the
entire population fell victims to it, and
twenty-six years after it nearly depopu-
lated Greenland. These examples cor
roborate the well-founded opinion that
contagious diseases are always most vir-
ulent when they first occur in country
or region that they have not before Wis.
ited.-NeU York Times.