Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/59

This page has been validated.
of Small-Pox.
31

continued on the Face more than three Weeks, before they have been fully digested and separated from the Skin.

Sometimes on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Day, during the Maturation, the Face, from the Colour of the digested Matter, beneath the Skin, grows pale, and sometimes white as a Sheet, with little Swelling or Elevation of the Cheeks, Lips or Nose, which is a Case always very dangerous, and most commonly fatal; tho' I acknowledge I have seen some escape in a very wonderful Manner, when not only the Face has had this Aspect, but even the Arms and Wrists have turned white by the purulent Matter, and the Confluence has been so great, that the concocted Contents have hung down in Bags like Bladders rais'd by Blistering Plaisters, which Bags being cut to discharge their purulent Matter, the Muscles were left all raw and uncover'd: But it sometimes happens that there is little or no Protuberance, or Swelling of the Confluent Eruptions, but the Face lyes flat and equal, while the minute, and scarce distinguishable Pustules growing dry only turn the Skin into the Likeness of an old Piece of Parchment, or dull Russian Leather, and even then the Patient has sometimes recover'd.

Another important Discriminating Property of this Kind of Small-Pox is the Spitting or Salivation that Nature raises usually about the eighth or ninth Day from the first Invasion,

and