Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/71

Rh the next, and certainly a very slight eruption and perhaps none at all.

In the first case, the inflammation and suppuration of a few pustules will not sensibly affect the animal œconomy, nor bring on the suppurative fever, which is the necessary consequence of a large crop, nor any of those dreadful symptoms, which attend the confluent sort. In short, the second period will be no illness at all; the patient is quite well as soon as the eruption appears.

He is surely no less so in the second case, when there is no general eruption; for the variolous infection having spent itself in the pustules that first came out at the place of insertion, these can no longer act upon the rest of the body, but are a sure sign that inoculation has produced its whole effect.

It has indeed been questioned, whether a patient who had but very few pustules, or only one, has had the small-pox as truly as one who has been very full, and whether he is equally safe from catching it.

He certainly had it, since the characteristic of the small-pox, that from which it is denominated in all languages, and by which it is distinguished from all other diseases, is the variolous eruption, not the number of pustules. He is equally safe from a return; for no reason can be alledged why we should have the small-pox but once, that will not equally hold good for one as for ten thousand pustules.

Rh