Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/60

46 is beneficial, and cold hurtful in the small-pox?

Now, though this popular error can have no abettors among physicians, yet, lest any should inadvertently be led astray, it may be worth our while to refute it.

1.It is contradicted by experience, which is above all reasonings.

2.It rests upon vague and confused notions, and falls to the ground as soon as we come to a definition of the words used to express it.

3.The hot air taken in by the breath is so far from driving the humors outward, that it rather carries them more forcibly to the internal parts, and especially to the lungs, by dilating the pulmonary blood-vessels; whereas cold contracts the diameter of those trunks, and forces the humors towards the external parts.

4.When the eruption is compleated, and the pustules have once appeared, the cold surrounding air of the atmospheres never strikes them in. This has been observed by many physicians, and may be so by all, as well as by myself. On the contrary, the eruption is always most copious in those parts, which are most exposed to the air, viz. the face and hands, even in the coldest weather. 5. If