This was considered the critical period, and was speedily followed by death, unless the patient soon after began to rally. The great difficulty and danger of this disease, (the confluent small-pox,) says Huxham, chiefly comes on at the state or turn of the pox; for however easily matters may have proceeded till this time, we are now (viz. the 7th, 9th, or 11th day from the eruption) very often surprised with a very shocking change, and terrible symptoms. The salivation and viscid discharge from the mouth are particularly described by Sydenham, and other eminent writers on this disease. It has been remarked, by most of the eyewitnesses of this epidemic, that it proved chiefly fatal to adults and old people, seldom to children, and that those who had suffered from it at a former period, as indicated by the marks on their skin, escaped it altogether, while there were few other cases of exemption. Dr. Mair proceeds to give, in his report, cases in which some Europeans were attacked by it, on which he has made some very excellent observations, and I regret that my limits will oblige me to exclude them from this work. Dr. Mair observes, that he met with no opposition on the part of the aborigines in his wishes to extend to them the inestimable benefits of vaccination; those who had not suffered from the late epidemic, viewed their escape as accidental, and while its frightful symptoms and dire effects were yet fresh in their memories they were willing to submit to a simple operation, which, they were told, would henceforth protect them against the disease. Dr. Mair thus concludes his interesting and valuable report. “1. The eruptive febrile disease, which lately prevailed among the aborigines, was contagious, or communicable from one person to another, and capable of being propagated by inoculation. “2. It approached more nearly in its symptoms to the character of small-pox than any other disease with which we are acquainted, particularly to that species of small-pox described by Staff-surgeon Marshall, as occurring in the Kandyan provinces in 1819.[59] “3. The mortality attending the disease varied from one in three to one in five or six, but might have been less if the persons labouring under it had been sheltered from the weather, and attended by physicians. “4. Vaccination seemed to possess a controlling power over it, as three blacks who had been successfully vaccinated, although equally exposed to the disease, escaped infection. “5. It was not confined to the aborigines, but in one instance attacked a European in the form of secondary small-pox, and proved fatal to a child with symptoms resembling confluent small-pox. “6. In several cases it occasioned blindness, and left many of the poor blacks in a very debilitated and helpless condition, with marks which could not be distinguished from the pits of small-pox on different parts of their bodies.