either before or after the eruption; by the former disease, the modified small-pox, consisting partly of pustules (containing matter), each pustule having a depression in the centre, and the favorite localities of the pustules being the wrists and the inside of the nostrils: while, in the chicken-pox, the eruption consists of vesicles (containing water), and not pustules (containing matter), and the vesicles having neither a depression in the centre, nor having any particular partiality to attack either the wrists or the wings of the nose. In modified small-pox each pustule is, as in unprotected small-pox, inflamed at the base; while in chicken-pox there is only very slight redness around each vesicle. The vesicles, too, in chicken-pox are small—much smaller than the pustules are in modified small-pox. 228. Is hooping-cough an inflammatory disease?
Hooping-cough in itself is not inflammatory, it is purely spasmodic; but it is generally accompanied with more or less of bronchitis—inflammation of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes—on which account it is necessary, in all cases of hooping-cough, to consult a medical man, that he may watch the progress of the disease and nip inflammation in the bud. 229. Will you have the goodness to give the symptoms, and a brief history, of Hooping-cough?
Hooping-cough is emphatically a disease of the young; it is rare for adults to have it; if they do, they usually suffer more severely than children. A child seldom has it but once in his life. It is highly contagious, and therefore frequently runs through a whole family of children, giving much annoyance, anxiety, and trouble to the mother and the nurses; hence hooping-cough is much dreaded by them. It is amenable to treatment. Spring and summer are the best seasons of the year for the disease to occur. This complaint usually lasts from six to twelve
