Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/39

Rh should have raised the upper skin and formed into pimples, meeting with an easier passage through the incision, or finding the cuticle softened or wasted by the plaister, necessarily brings on an ulcer. This must be dressed for a fortnight at least; and whilst the principal disorder employs the inoculator but two or three days, the incisions require his attendance for several weeks. Thus a complaint is produced both tedious and painful and not only needless, but also prejudicial to the success of inoculation. It even happens that the ulcer will not heal up, but grows so deep and foul, that the surgeon cannot conquer it in many months and the patient must suffer a thousand times more from this, than from the small-pox itself.

4. It is well known, that sometimes inoculation leaves other bad remains; such as erisypelas', tumors and abscesses, which are very troublesome, and may become fatal. That this is altogether owing to the wounds, will appear if we consider 1, that these complaints never come after the natural small-pox when mild; 2, that they sometimes happen after a confluent pock, when, by opening of the pustules, or by some other accident, ulcers are formed in the leg or elsewhere; 3, that in inoculated persons, these sores, &c. always appear on the side of the insertion, when single; and when made on both arms or legs, then on that where the incision was deepest, and the wound had spread most; and 4, that nothing of this ever happens, when there has been no wound at the place of insertion, but only an eruption. These four Rh