Page:The New Method of Inoculating for the Small-Pox - Benjamin Rush.djvu/23

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purpose. We observe a plentiful discharge of matter from them every time the body is exposed to cold, and the febrile effects of it upon the system are thereby frequently obviated. How far a ratio exists between the degrees of inflammation and the discharge of matter from the arm, and the degrees of fever and eruption, must be determined by future and very accurate observations. If it should appear that there are the least inflammation and smallest discharge, where there have been the highest fever and most copious eruption; and on the contrary, if it should appear that there are the greatest inflammation and discharge where there have been the least fever and smallest: eruption, I must beg leave to add, without attempting in this place to explain the reasons of it, that the remark, if generally true, is liable to some exceptions. But the subject is involved in darkness; I shall be satisfied if I have brought you within fight of the promised land. Your own ingenuity, like another Jewish leader, must conduct you thither.

The indications in the treatment of the body during the eruptive fever are,

1st. To regulate the degree of fever.

2d.To