Page:The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox - Benjamin Rush.djvu/29

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flammation and sore. Instead of these, the part affected should be washed three or four times a day with cold water[1]. This application is not only agreeable to our patients, but soon checks the progress of the inflammation, and disposes the sore to heal about the time the eruption is compleated. The eyes should likewise be washed frequently with cold water, to secure them from pustules and inflammation. With respect to those alarming or troublesome symptoms which occur in those cases where the pocks are numerous, or confluent, they happen so seldom in inoculation, that they do not come properly under our notice in this place. They are moreover fully discussed by Doctors Boerhaave, Huxham, Hillary, and other practical writers.

V. I come now, in the last place, to deliver a few directions that are necessary after the eruption and suppuration are over.

It is well known that eruptions of an obstinate nature sometimes follow the small-pox. These I believe are often occasioned by a too sudden and speedy use of animal food. To guard against these disagreeable consequences of inoculation, it is of the ut-

most
  1. Where the inflammation on the arm has been so considerable as not to yield immediately to the application of cold water, I have used the vegeto-mineral water with advantage.