Page:The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox - Benjamin Rush.djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

[21]

ter. Even in those cases where they languish most for the bed, they should be encouraged rather to lie upon, than under the bed-clothes. Children should be stript of flannel petticoats that come in contact with their skins; and even clouts should be laid aside if possible, without great inconvenience, and at any rate they should be often removed. Great and obvious as the advantages of cold air appear to be in the eruptive fever, it has sometimes been used to an excess that has done mischief. There are few cases where a degree of cold below forty of Fahrenheit's thermometer is necessary in this stage of the small-pox. When it has been used below this, or where patients have been exposed to a damp atmosphere some degrees above it, I have heard of inflammations of an alarming nature being produced in the throat and breast.

c. The bowels, more especially of children, should be kept open with gentle laxatives. And

d. Cool subacid drinks should be used plentifully until the eruption is, compleated.

Sometimes the small-pox comes on with a fever the reverse of that which we have described. The heat is inconsiderable, the pulse is weak, and scarcely quick-

er

{smallrefs}}