Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/38

24 to give the small-pox; is it likely that so great a difference in the quantity of this poison, should occasion none in the nature of the future wound? Is it not rather certain, that, cæteris paribus, both the inflammation and suppuration, as well as the number of pustules raised round about the incision, are proportionable to the size of the thread? Every inoculator, as well as myself, must have observed this difference, especially when the insertion is made in two places.

Undoubtedly a greater inflammation, and a more copious eruption about the wound, must add to the greater violence of the disorder. Dr. Lunadei, an Italian physician, is the first who has taken notice, that those whom he inoculated with a pin, were neither so full nor so sick as those, who underwent the common operation. I observed the same thing; and am now far from thinking, as I formerly thought and said, that it is all one whether you put in more or less matter, just as it is whether a mine is set on fire with a spark or a live coal. It is all one as to giving the small-pox, but not so as to the other effects it will have upon the animal system.

3. When the puncture is once made, you have nothing more to do, either before or after the eruption: the little orifice is soon closed, and one or more pustules appear upon the scar, of the same nature and duration with those of the other parts, and requiring no farther care; whereas in the usual method, the eruption about the wound is obstructed, and the humor, which Rh