Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/51

Rh self sometimes in scarlet, and sometimes in blue Spots, dispersed over the Body in great Numbers; and then the Distemper, though it appears favourable in Respect of the Distinction of the Pustules, yet by Reason of the Malignancy and Corruption discovered by the other Marks, it is no less fatal, than the worst of the confluent Kind; and had not those malignant Particles, by some extraordinary Way been separated from the Matter of the Pustules, no doubt the Distemper had been of the worst confluent Sort.

I shall here make only this farther Remark, that in the mildest Sort of the distinct Species there is not any Danger, and the worst of the Confluent are as much incurable, as the Plague it self; and therefore as the first does not require the Attendance of the Physician and the Use of Medicines; so in the last they are unequal to the Disease, and altogether insignificant; whence it follows that the only Province in which the Physician is useful, must be the intermediate Degrees, that is, the most favourable Sort of the confluent Kind, that of a middle Nature, and that of the worst of the distinct Sort.

By orderly Steps we are now advanced to the confluent Species of the Small-Pox, that is, when the Eruptions or Pustules, that appear upon the Skin, break their Partitions and run into one another; this Conjunction often happens in the Face, while the Pustules in the Body are separate and disjoyned, and fore