223. Will you describe the symptoms of Chicken-pox?
It is occasionally, but not always, ushered in with a slight shivering fit; the eruption shows itself in about twenty-four hours from the child first appearing poorly. It is a vesicular disease. Vesicles. Small elevations of the cuticle, covering a fluid which is generally clear and colorless at first, but becomes afterward whitish and opaque, or pearly.—Watson. The eruption comes out in the form of small pimples, and principally attacks the scalp, the neck, the back, the chest, and the shoulders, but rarely the face; while in small-pox the face is generally the part most affected. The next day these pimples fill with water, and thus become vesicles; on the third day they are at maturity. The vesicles are quite separate and distinct from each other. There is a slight redness around each of them. Fresh ones, while the others are dying away, make their appearance. Chicken-pox is usually attended with a slight itching of the skin; when the vesicles are scratched the fluid escapes, and leaves hard pearl-like substances; which, in a few days, disappear. Chicken-pox never leaves pit-marks behind. It is a child's complaint; adults scarcely, if ever, have it. 224. Is there any danger in Chicken-pox; and what treatment do you advise?
It is not at all a dangerous, but, on the contrary, a trivial complaint. It lasts only a few days, and requires but little medicine. The patient ought, for three or four days, to keep the house, and should abstain from animal food. On the sixth day, but not until then, a dose or two of a mild aperient is all that will be required.
225. Is Chicken-pox infectious?
There is a diversity of opinion on this head, but one thing is certain—it cannot be communicated by inoculation.
226. What are the symptoms of Modified Small-pox?
