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Symptoms (Fever delirium vomiting pulse)

Fever, delirium, vomiting; pulse strong or weak, as the fever inclines to the inflammatory or typhous kind. On the fourth day sometimes on the second or third - the skin in some one part becomes red and inflamed, which is soon extended to others, the parts affected being swollen and of a bright scarlet. If the face is attacked, it spreads itself on the scalp, and the eyelids sometimes swell so as to prevent the patient from seeing. After a longer or shorter period, the eruption ends in small watery vesicles, or in branny scales. At this period the fever sometimes abates; at others, drowsiness or delirium comes on, which increases it, and destroys the patient by the eleventh day. Treatment. This disease is of two kinds, one of which is principally confined to the skin, while the other affects the whole system. If the accompanying fever is inflammatory bleeding will be proper, otherwise not. This operation is to be cautiously employed in erysipelas, as it sometimes runs into a typhous state. If, however, the patient is robust, his head aches, and great marks of fullness and inflammation are evident, which is generally the case in this country, bleeding, purging with salts, and cooling drinks should be employed, to which, also, may be added Dover's powders, boneset tea, etc., to produce sweating.

The room should be kept cool. If, on the contrary, the fever is typhous, or the patient is of a weak and irritable habit of body, bleeding should never be resorted to. Opium, wine, bark, elixir of vitriol, and tincture of chloride of iron (20 drops every three hours) are necessary in this case, to guard against mortification, which sometimes ensues.

As local applications, bathing the parts with laudanum or lead-water, or dusting them with rye meal or wheat flour, are the best. Should the disease evidently be confined to the skin, the application of a blister will sometimes put an end to it. If it affect the face, it may be prevented from extending to the scalp, by painting a line just beyond the eruption quite thickly with tincture of iodine. If abscesses form, large openings must be made, to let out the matter and the dead parts.

When the first or inflammatory kind prevails, the diet should be barley, sago, or panada, etc., with lemonade, tamarind water, etc., for drink; and, on the contrary, when the second or typhous form of it (especially if accompanied by putrid symptoms) shows itself, a more generous diet, with a moderate quantity of wine, etc., must be employed.

It may not be useless again to observe, that in the United States erysipelas often calls for reducing and cooling measures. Among the various articles which are employed in this, as well as all inflammatory diseases, none ranks higher than lemonade, which should always, if possible, be made from the fresh fruit. When taken cold, and in liberal quantities, it is not only delicious to the palate of the patient, but tends powerfully to cure the complaint.

Measles.