Page:The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox - Benjamin Rush.djvu/20

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the body, we should always guard against both, by making the puncture the second time with fresh matter, by subjecting our patients to a less abstemious diet, and by giving fewer doles of physic. I have heard it remarked, that if a slight redness and a small pimple appeared on the arm on the third day after inoculation, it was a sign the matter had infected the whole constitution I acknowledge I have often seen a greater degree of redness on the third than on the second day after inoculation, but I have not been able to establish a diagnostic mark from it; for I have seen the disease produced on the usual days where the redness has appeared on the second day, and in some cases where it has not appeared until the eruptive fever.

I am led here unwillingly to discuss the old question, Is it possible to have the small-pox in the natural way after inoculation?—In many of the cases supposed to be the small-pox from inoculation, it is probable the matter has been taken from the chicken-pox, which resembles the small-pox in many of its peculiarities, but in hone more than that of leaving pits or marks on the skin. But there are certainly cases where there are the most irrefragible proofs of the infection implanted by inoculation being of a variolous nature, where the dis-

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