An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts — John Shaqi
An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those partsHolwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
History
An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts
Holwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
Smallpox -- Prevention; Smallpox -- Vaccination
inoculated pustules of the preceding year, for they never inoculate with
fresh matter, nor with matter from the disease caught in the natural
way, however distinct and mild the species. He then proceeds to give
instructions for the treatment of the patient through the course of the
process, which are most religiously observed; these are as follow:
He extends the prohibition of fish, milk, and ghee, for one month from
the day of Inoculation; early on the morning succeeding the operation,
four collons (an earthen pot containing about two gallons) of cold water
are ordered to be thrown over the patient, from the head downwards, and
to be repeated every morning and evening until the fever comes on,
(which usually is about the close of the sixth day from the
Inoculation,) then to desist until the appearance of the eruptions,
(which commonly happens at the close of the third complete day from the
commencement of the fever,) and then to pursue the cold bathing as
before, through the course of the disease, and until the scabs of the
pustules drop off. They are ordered to open all the pustules with a fine
sharp pointed thorn, as soon as they begin to change their colour, and
whilst the matter continues in a fluid state. Confinement to the house
is absolutely forbid, and the inoculated are ordered to be exposed to
every air that blows; and the utmost indulgence they are allowed when
the fever comes on, is to be laid on a mat at the door; but, in fact,
the eruptive fever is generally so inconsiderable and trifling, as very
seldom to require this indulgence. Their regimen is ordered to consist
of all the refrigerating things the climate and season produces, as
plantains, sugar-canes, water-melons, rice, gruel made of white
poppy-seeds, and cold water, or thin rice gruel for their ordinary
drink. These instructions being given, and an injunction laid on the
patients to make a thanksgiving _Poojah_, or Offering, to the Goddess on
their recovery, the Operator takes his fee, which from the poor is a
_pund of cowries_, equal to about a penny sterling, and goes on to
another door, down one side of the street and up on the other, and is
thus employed from morning until night, inoculating sometimes eight or
ten in a house. The regimen they order, when they are called to attend
the disease taken in the natural way, is uniformly the same. There
usually begins to be a discharge from the scarification a day before the
eruption, which continues through the disease, and sometimes after the
scabs of the Pock fall off, and a few pustules generally appear round
the edge of the wound; when these two circumstances appear only, without
a single eruption on any other part of the body, the patient is deemed
as secure from future infection, as if the eruption had been general.
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