Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/63

Rh caused the first, was in some Measure translated to the last, and so was the Cause of it; and this Opinion has generally obtained among the Gentlemen of the Faculty. But this I look upon to be a great Mistake; for though the Swelling of the Hands immediately follow the sinking of the Face, yet it follows not as an Effect from a Cause, but as a Consequent succeeds an Antecedent; for that Swelling necessarily arises from the inflammatory Pustules in the Hands themselves, which at that Time come to Suppuration, as those in the Face swelled by their own Heat thirty Hours before, and not from any Matter communicated to it from the Face: For when the Digestion is fully, or almost compleated, and the Inflammation ceases, the Swelling does of Course subside; as it plainly does in all Kinds of inflammatory Cases whatsoever, that come to Suppuration; as in Boils, Phlegmons, scorbutick Tumours, &c. and when the Feet swell, as they often do, if the Number of the Pustules is great by the Anguish and Pain affecting the Fibres, this Symptom does not proceed from the Matter translated from the Face, or Hands, to the Feet, but from the Suppuration of their own Pustules, as the Face and Hands swell by the ripening of theirs; If a Boil is digested and ripened in the Arm, and another, that rose two Days after in the Thigh, begins at this Time to swell to a greater Degree by the Pain and Suffering in the Maturation; will it not Rh