In my former treatises on this subject I have remarked that the
human constitution frequently retains its susceptibility to the
smallpox contagion (both from effluvia and contact) after
previously feeling its influence. In further corroboration of
this declaration many facts have been communicated to me by
various correspondents. I shall select one of them.
"DEAR SIR:
"Society at large must, I think, feel much indebted to you for
your Inquiries and Observations on the Nature and Effects of the
Variolae Vaccinae, etc., etc. As I conceive what I am now about
to communicate to be of some importance, I imagine it cannot be
uninteresting to you, especially as it will serve to corroborate
your assertion of the susceptibility of the human system of the
variolous contagion, although it has previously been made
sensible of its action. In November, 1793, I was desired to
inoculate a person with the smallpox. I took the variolous matter
from a child under the disease in the natural way, who had a
large burthen of distinct pustules. The mother of the child being
desirous of seeing my method of communicating the disease by
inoculation, after having opened a pustule, I introduced the
point of my lancet in the usual way on the back part of my own
hand, and thought no more of it until I felt a sensation in the
part which reminded me of the transaction. This happened upon the
third day; on the fourth there were all the appearances common to
inoculation, at which I was not at all surprised, nor did I feel
myself uneasy upon perceiving the inflammation continue to
increase to the sixth and seventh day, accompanied with a very
small quantity of fluid, repeated experiments having taught me it
might happen so with persons who had undergone the disease, and
yet would escape any constitutional affection; but I was not so
fortunate; for on the eighth day I was seized with all the
symptoms of the eruptive fever, but in a much more violent degree
than when I was before inoculated, which was about eighteen years
previous to this, when I had a considerable number of pustules. I
must confess I was now greatly alarmed, although I had been much
engaged in the smallpox, having at different times inoculated not
less than two thousand persons. I was convinced my present
indisposition proceeded from the insertion of the variolous
matter, and, therefore, anxiously looked for an eruption. On the
tenth day I felt a very unpleasant sensation of stillness and
heat on each side of my face near my ear, and the fever began to
decline. The affection in my face soon terminated in three or
four pustules attended with inflammation, but which did not
maturate, and I was presently well.
"I remain, dear sir, etc.,
"THOMAS MILES."
This inquiry is not now so much in its infancy as to restrain me
from speaking more positively than formerly on the important
point of scrophula as connected with the smallpox.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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