SMALL-POX.
Character: Variola or small-pox is a contagious eruptive fever. Infection may be conveyed by immediate contact with the patient or by various articles such as clothing and bedding, or by things which have been in the sick room. The poison can remain active for years if not exposed to great heat. It is also carried by air from one place to another.
Caution: The patient should be isolated in a separate room or if possible in a separate building. Disinfection should be strictly carried out both during the disease and afterwards. Attendants must avoid inhaling the breath of the patient. Everyone in the family or in the neighbourhood should be at once vaccinated for sake of safety. Those who do not like to be vaccinated may take Malandrinum 30 or Variolinum 200 either twice a week or twice a month according to circumstances.
Food and other articles of diet must be carefully covered and attendants or persons coming in contract with the patient should use some disinfectant before they meet friends. Files should not be allowed to sit on food.
Preventives: Vaccination: Internal use of Malandrinum or Variolinum or Vaccininum or Sarracenia or Thuja.
Varieties: 1. Discrete. 2. Confluent. 3. Hemorrhagic. 4. Varioloid. 5. Malignant. Complications:
1. Pneumonia.
2. Pleuritis.
3. Meningitis.
4. Pericarditis.
5. Suppurative inflammation of joints
6. Periostitis.
7. Abscess formations; boils.
8. Glandular swellings.
9. Typhoid.
10. Ophthalmia.
11. Repercussion of eruptions.
Duration: 4-5 weeks., Crisis about 21st day.
Sequelaes: 1. Pitting.
2. Boils, abscesses.
3. Conjunctivitis.
4. Middle ear disease.
5. Erysipelas.
6. Gangrene of scrotum (usually fatal).
7. Chronic diarrhoea.
Prognosis: (a) The very young and the very old rarely recover. Recovery rare after sixty.
(b) Prognosis is grave in case of confluent small-pox.
(c) Syphilitics, usually fatal.
(d) In the intemperate, usually fatal.
(e) In variola hemorrhagic, recovery rare.
(f) Dangerous when lung complications are present.
(g) Inflammations of skin between the pustules, unfavourable sign.
(h) Epistaxis and other hemorrhages, unfavourable sign.
(i) Scanty urine (early) unfavourable.
(j) Intense secondary fever between ninth and twelfth days (unfavourable symptom)
(k) Diarrhoea, unfavourable sign.
(l) Very severe cases are most apt to be fatal.
(m) Typhoid complications, a bad sign.
(n) Repercussion of eruptions (Danger)
(o) When the swelling suddenly sinks and the pustules suddenly dry up the case is dangerous.
(p) If on the fifth or sixth day the pimples do not change into vesicles with watery heads but remain hard, small and look parched, the case will be fatal. In such cases the eruptions are very small, looking like mustard seeds.
(q) Eruptions in nostrils, eyes, tongue, mouth and throat; swelling of hands and feet, profuse flow of Saliva (Severe case.) Stages: Incubation.
Initial stage.
Eruption.
Suppuration.
Desiccation.
The symptoms: Incubation, the period from exposure to infection to the appearance of the disease is five to twenty days or ordinarily twelve days. Invasion takes place at the end of this period.
The disease begins with a shaking chill or repeated chilliness. The chill or chills may also be absent in some cases. The temperature rises to 103*F or higher. The fever is almost always marked by severe pain in the back and head, aching all over, nausea, often vomiting, occasionally sore throat. Convulsions or frequent startling in children. Soreness of body, delirium and marked prostration. In some epidemics the dreadful backache of small pox was entirely absent.
I have seen some fatal cases where the temperature was not high but the prostration was severe with dreadful dreams and delirium. The onset of small-pox is sudden with severe headache, backache and vomiting. If during the initial fever the finger is pressed on the forehead a shotty feeling may sometimes be noticed before the eruption is visible. In small pox the temperature falls with the onset of the rash. The papules have shotty feel. On the third or fourth day of the fever an eruption of raised red spots appears first on the forehead and face and about mouth.
Then the eruption extends to the scalp, arms and hands, over the body and down the legs. The whole process takes two or three days. The eruption have a granulated feel. This hard shotty feel of the eruptions does not last long. After some hours papules begin to change to vesicles. On the fifth day each pimple becomes a vesicle with watery head, round base, central depression and inflamed margin.
The fever and all other painful symptoms disappear or are markedly diminished with the appearance of the eruptions on the 3rd. or 4th. day of the fever. The patient now feels a sense of relief but this is only temporary and is followed by dangerous and alarming symptoms when the secondary fever commences.
Suppuration or secondary fever commences on the 7th, or on the 8th day. In severe cases, at this stage, the whole scene changes. The patient, usually with very high fever, becomes delirious, unconscious and swollen especially on the face and extremities. The swelling is sometimes so great that the features become almost obliterated, sore throat, diarrhoea, Pneumonia and other complications may now appear throwing the patients life into danger. In bad cases the patient becomes totally unconscious or highly delirious with attempts to escape from the bed. Due to sore throat he may fail to take any diet.
His eyes may close with swelling of face and he cannot see anything. The lips are often terribly swollen. The whole patient at this time is simply frightful to look at. I have watched some very bad cases of small-pox where the papules remained hard even on the 9th. or 10th. day and never developed into vesicles. Here the papules had parched and dark appearance with low fever and all the symptoms of malignancy. In all such cases there was no suppuration and no recovery. Patients generally died on the 9th. or 10th. day or sometimes earlier.
In all my cases a Typhoid condition was noticed. In mild cases the stage of suppuration lasts for 3 or 4 days and then the eruptions begin to dry up and the general symptoms subside. In fatal cases the fever and all other symptoms gradually increase and the scene closes in death usually on the 13th. or 14th. day and sometimes earlier or later. When recovery takes place the disease generally takes 21 days or a month for complete recovery. Small-pox occuring in young children or old persons or in the unvaccinated is almost always fatal.
Of course efficient homoeopathic treatment can save some of these unfortunate victims of small-pox from the very jaws of death. The confluent form of small-pox is very severe and the pustules run together. The hemorrhagic form of small-pox contain blood in the pustules. In purpuric form of small-pox the patient becomes dark purple in colour and the eruptions become purpuric and hemorrhages from stomach and lungs are frequently present. In hemorrhagic and purpuric forms of small-pox the patients almost invariably die.
Diet: In all severe cases the chief diet should be milk provided no diarrhoea is present. In cases complicated with diarrhoea barley water can be safely given. sago also can be given either alone or with milk. In any case the diet should always be liquid. During convalescence gruel or rice should be freely allowed with vegetable soup. Meat should not be used for sometime even after recovery. In India in mild cases some patients can tolerate rice diet or Loochi (preparation of flour in ghee) very well during the whole course of the disease. But it is often risky as it may create unpleasant complications.
Treatment: The Homoeopathic medicines, if carefully selected, can perform miracles in the treatment of small-pox. Our medicines are of undoubted value in the treatment of this dreadful disease. I have always obtained excellent results from the use of our drugs even in very severe cases of small-pox. Their power to abort the disease is unquestionable and wonderful. No other form of medicine can do what our drugs have done for small pox patients. I refuse to believe that any other school of medicine can claim to have cured small-pox of a violent character before the 9th or 10th day of the disease.
Our medicines have done this miracle and never allowed the secondary fever in the suppurative stage either to come or to advance. In all my cases where I had a chance to administer the appropriate drug on the 5th or 6th. or even on the 7th. day of the disease the suppuration never took place and the eruptions completely dried on the 9th. or 10th. day or in otherwords the patient was completely cured of all his troubles to the full satisfaction and joy of all concerned.
I am always proud of such wonderful cures which were and can be possible only under Homoeopathic treatment. All other forms of treatment carry the disease through all its stages but Hahnemanns Homoeopathy can cure this ugly disease in any of its stages within 72 hours or so of the administration of medicine, provided one can hit upon the right remedy. I do not like to conceal the fact that the small-pox patients have died even under the most efficient Homoeopathic treatment but such cases are not numerous.
Calcutta