Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Chicken-Pox

CHICKEN-POX, a contagious and infectious disease, is characterized by a specific eruption, which breaks out over the whole body, and runs a definite course in about eight or ten days. The disease appears to be the result of a specific poison which, after a period of latency or incubation, develops into one of more or less feverishness. This lasts for two or three days, when an eruption of pimples appears, at first on the body, then on the face and head, the fever subsiding as the rash appears. These pimples soon fill up with lymph, and become vesicles which in their turn, two or three days later, shrivel up and fall off in the form of crusts or scabs, seldom, however, becoming purulent or pitting as in the eruption of small-pox. Adults seldom suffer from chicken-pox.