The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latine and compared with the French. by Th: Johnson

CHAP. I. Of the causes of the Small Pockes and Meazles.

FOR that the small Pocks and Meazles are diseases, which usually are forerunners and foretellers of the plague, not only by the cor∣ruption of humours, but oft times by default of the aire; moreo∣ver, for that wormes are oft times generated in the plague, I have thought good to write of these things, to the end that by this trea∣tise the young Surgeon may bee more amply and perfectly in∣structed in that pestilent disease. Also I have thought good to treat of the Leprosie as being the off-spring of the highest corruption of humours in the body. Now the small pocks are pustles, and the meazels spots which arise in the top of the skinne by reason of the impurity of the corrupt blood sent thither by * 1.1 the force of nature. Most of the Antients have delivered that this impurity is the reliques of the menstruous blood remaining in the body of the infant, being of that matter from whence it drew nourishment in the wombe, which lying still or quiet for some space of time, but stirred up at the first opportunity of a hotter summer, or a foutherly or rainy season, or a hidden malignity in the aire, and boyling up, or working with the whole masse of the blood, spread or shew themselves upon the whole surface of the body. An argument hereof is, there are few or none who have not beene troubled with this disease, at least once in their lives, which when it be∣gins to shew it selfe, not content to set upon some one, it commonly seazeth upon more: now commonly there is as much difference betweene the small pockes and meazles, as there is between a Carbuncle and a pestilent Bubo. For the small pocks arise of a more grosse and viscous matter, to wit, of a phlegmaticke humour. But the meazles of a more subtle and hot, that is, a cholericke matter, therefore this yeilds no markes thereof, but certaine small spots without any tumour, and these either red, purple, or blacke. But the small pockes are extuberating pustles, white in the midst, but red in the circumference, an argument of blood mixed with chol∣ler,

yet they are scarce knowne at the beginning, that is, on the first or second day they appeare; but on the third and fourth day they bunch out and rise up into a tu∣mour, becomming white before they turne into a scab; but the meazles remaine still the same. Furthermore the small pockes pricke like needles by reason of a cer∣taine acrimony, and cause an itching; the meazles doe neither, either because the * 1.2 matter is not so acride and biting, or else for that it is more subtle, it easily exhales, neither is it kept shut up under the skinne. The patients often sneese when as these matters seek passage out, by reason of the putride vapoures ascending from the low∣er parts upwards to the braine. They are held with a continuall feaver, with paines in their backes, itching of their nose, head-ach, and a vertiginous heavinesse, and with a kinde of sowning or fainting, a nauseous disposition, and vomiting, a hoarse∣nesse, difficult and frequent breathing, an inclination to sleepe a heavinesse of all the members their eyes are fiery and swollen, their urine reduce and troubled. For prognostickes, wee may ruley say thus much. That the matter whence this affect takes its originall, partakes of so malign, pestilent and contagious a quality, that not * 1.3 content to mang••e and spoile the fleshy parts, it also eates and corrupts the bones, like the Lues venerea, as I observed not onely in Anno Dom. 1568. but also in divers other yeares, whereof I thinke it not amisse to set downe this notable example.

The daughter of Claude Piquè bookseller, dwelling in S. James his street at Paris, * 1.4 being some foure or five yeeres old, having beene sicke of the small pockes for the space of a month, and nature could not overcome the malignity of the disease, there rose abscesses upon the sternon and the joints of the shoulders, whose eating and vi∣rulent matter, corroded the bones of the sternon, and divided them insunder; also it consumed a great part of the toppe of the shoulder-bone, and the head of the blade-bone: of this thing I had witnesses with me, Marcus Myron physitian of Paris, and at this present the Kings chiefe physitian, John Doreau Surgeon to the Conte de Bry∣ane, the body being dissected in their presence. Also you may observe in many kil∣led by the malignity of this disease, and dissected, that it causeth such impression of corruption in the principall parts, as brings the dropsie, ptisick, a hoarsenesse, Asth∣ma, bloody fluxe ulcerating the guts, and at length bringing death, as the pustles have raged or raigned over these or these entrailes, as you see them to do over the sur∣face * 1.5 of the body; for they do not only molest the externall parts, by leaving the im∣pressions and scarres of the pustles and ulcers, rooting themselves deepe in the flesh, but also oft times they take away the faculty of motion, eating asunder, and weake∣ning the joints of the elbow, wrest, knee and ancle. Moreover sundry have been de∣prived of their sight by them, as the Lord of Guymenay, others have lost their hea∣ring, and other some their smelling, a fleshy excrescence growing in the passages of the nose and eares. But if any reliques of the disease remaine, and that the whole matter thereof bee not expelled by the strength of nature, then symptomes after∣wards arise, which savour of the malignity of the humour, yea and equall the harme of the symptomes of the Lues venerea.

Notes

• * 1.1

  What the small pockes and Meazles are. Their matter.
• * 1.2

  Why the Mea∣zles doe not itch.
• * 1.3

  Prognostickes.
• * 1.4

  A historie.
• * 1.5

  What grievous and pernitious symptomes may happen by the small pockes.