*Grippe.*--An attack of grippe may simulate the early symptoms of
smallpox very closely. The onset may be sudden, the muscular pains
severe, the pyrexia decided, the general prostration as marked as
in smallpox. In grippe, however, the muscular pains are, as a rule,
more general than in smallpox, there is rarely profuse sweating, and
symptoms referable to the respiratory tract soon develop, if indeed
they are not present from the beginning.
*Rheumatism.*--The severe lumbar and sacral pains of smallpox have
been mistaken for rheumatism, but such an error can be made only where
the use of the clinical thermometer is unknown. A febrile movement
in lumbago is absent or but slight, while in smallpox the pyrexia is
usually pronounced.
*Typhoid and Typhus.*--Typhoid and typhus fevers have at times been
confounded with smallpox. But errors of this kind can be made only
where the history of the case is completely ignored. In typhus, it is
true, the eruption, petechial and almost papular in character, may
suggest hemorrhagic smallpox; but the eruption of typhus rarely appears
before the fourth or fifth day of the illness and is located chiefly on
the trunk, sparing the face. The rash of malignant smallpox develops
usually on the third or even the second day of the illness and is not
limited to the trunk.
Upon the appearance of the rash in a typical case of smallpox the
febrile diseases with which it is most frequently confounded are
measles and varicella. It is interesting to note that until the time of
Sydenham, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, measles and
smallpox were regarded as manifestations of the same disease, and that
the Vienna school of dermatologists, even to this day, insists on the
etiological unity of variola and varicella.
*Measles.*--As a matter of fact the early papular eruption of measles
bears a considerable resemblance to the first stage of the eruption of
smallpox. In both the eruption is noted first in the face. In smallpox,
however, the papules have a firm, “shotty” feeling on palpation, while
in measles they are smooth and velvety to the touch. In measles the
eruption, viewed at a little distance, seems to present a distinctly
corymbose or crescentic grouping, an arrangement which is absent in
smallpox. The eruption of smallpox appears at the end of the third
day, that of measles on the fourth day. The temperature in smallpox
undergoes a rapid defervescence upon the appearance of the rash,
while in measles it continues to rise after the eruption appears.
The pronounced pain in the back is absent in measles, while the very
marked catarrhal symptoms, coryza, conjunctivitis, etc., are lacking in
smallpox. The subsequent course of the eruption will leave no room for
doubt, since within twenty-four hours the papules of smallpox will have
developed into characteristic vesicles.
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