Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/53

Rh their cause, as in their symptoms and duration. The one is the effect of the immediate action of the venom; the other of the inflammation and suppuration of the pustules. The first is nervous; the second inflammatory.

It is necessary to observe, that the local inflammation and suppuration, which preceded the first stage of the real disorder, and sometimes are prolonged and even increased during its progress, combine their effects with those, which arise from the universal variolous affection. This remark is the more important, as it points out the most essential difference between the natural and artificial disorder.

Inoculation shews that the part, where the matter is applied, is constantly the first affected, and is more so than any other. This part becomes the feat of an eruption, and consequently of inflammation.

In the natural way, the venom dispersed in the air is mostly conveyed by respiration into the lungs, or by deglutition into the stomach. That part of these internal organs which first received the infection, must be affected in the same manner as the external part is by inoculation. But an eruption and inflammation, which affect the animal œconomy but little, if at all, when produced upon the skin of the arm or hand, must be of the utmost consequence when they take place in organs whose action is so necessary to life. Their influence extends over all other parts, and they are of such a nature, that an inflammation upon the Rh