CHICKEN POX

(raricella oC medical writers.) An eruptive disease, which though frequently very mild in its attack, is often also violent and attended by much fever. The eruption consists of smooth vesicles of various sizes, which afterwards become whitish and straw coloured; about the fourth day they break and scab off, seldom leaving marks, or at least not more than a few. upon the most delicate parts of the face, or where they happen to have wnrmbeen large weather or accidentally the fluid in the scratched vesicles or becomes"irritated.yellow,In very anil apparently purulent, so as closely to resemble smallpox in appearance; and under some circumstances the eruptive fever has not only been considerable, but preceded by delirium. The distinctive or diagnostic characters by which we distinguish chicken-pox from small-pox are, — 1st, the comparative mildne of the preliminary fever, which indeed is often unobserved in strong and merry children, and nothing known of the complaint till the spots are observed about the face and breast: 2d, the rapidity with which the eruption attains matjirity and proceeds through its stnges, the scabs forming crusts about the fourth or fifth day, which does not happen in the inMIl-pox till the tenth or eleventh: 3d, the fluid in the vesicles is usually transparent,or only milky, whereas in small-pox it has a purulent appearance from the commencement. Like the smallpox,it very rarely attacks the same individual more than once. In the treatment of this disease little else is in most cases requisite than to keep the patient cool, to abstain from meat, to give diluents and mild aperients, and occasionally,at the commencement, a dose of calomel and rhubarb. In bad cases, the whole body is covered with eruption, in mild ones there shall only be a very few vesi cles; and it not uncommonly happens that where several children have it in succe ion, one or two will escape with little else than slight restle ne and very trivial febrile symptoms. It is, however, by no means so trifling a disease as many writers have represented it, and if not closely watched over, may be mistaken for small-pox. [s. 238]