One of the first objects then of this pursuit, as I have
observed, should be, to learn how to distinguish with accuracy
between that peculiar pustule which is the true cow pock, and
that which is spurious. Until experience has determined this, we
view our object through a mist. Let us, for instance, suppose
that the smallpox and the chicken-pox were at the same time to
spread among the inhabitants of a country which had never been
visited by either of these distempers, and where they were quite
unknown before: what confusion would arise! The resemblance
between the symptoms of the eruptive fever and between the
pustules in either case would be so striking that a patient who
had gone through the chicken-pox to any extent would feel equally
easy with regard to his future security from the smallpox as the
person who had actually passed through that disease. Time and
future observation would draw the line of distinction.
So I presume it will be with the cow-pox until it is more
generally understood. All cavilling, therefore, on the mere
report of those who TELL US they have had this distemper, and are
afterwards found susceptible of the smallpox, should be
suspended. To illustrate this I beg leave to give the following
history:
Sarah Merlin, of the parish of Eastington in this county, when
about thirteen or fourteen years of age lived as a servant with
farmer Clarke, who kept a dairy consisting of about eighteen cows
at Stonehouse, a neighbouring village. The nipples and udders of
three of the cows were extensively affected with large white
blisters. These cows the girl milked daily, and at the time she
assisted, with two others, in milking the rest of the herd. It
soon appeared that the disease was communicated to the girl. The
rest of the cows escaped the infection, although they were milked
several days after the three above specified, had these eruptions
on the nipples and udders, and even after the girl's hand became
sore. The two others who were engaged in milking, although they
milked the cows indiscriminately, received no injury. On the
fingers of each of the girl's hands there appeared several large
white blisters--she supposes about three or four on each finger.
The hands and arms inflamed and swelled, but no constitutional
indisposition followed. The sores were anointed with some
domestic ointment and got well without ulcerating.
As this malady was called the cow-pox, and recorded as such in
the mind of the patient, she became regardless of the smallpox;
but, on being exposed to it some years afterwards she was
infected, and had a full burthen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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