NOTE: - 51 -

[...in] Article 36, and in order to restore the strength of the sick person, [they should] give [him] a little good wine diluted with water. 75. When the sick person feels improvement, he must observe the rules of precaution written in Article 55, and take food in such manner as is written in Article 37.

CHAPTER VII. On the Natural Smallpox. (*)

74. If the disease begins with a fever, and along with it spots (red, red marks) break out upon the body like flea-bites, which fill up and take on pus, this disease is called smallpox [*tsaghik*]. 75. Smallpox is called benign [*bari*] if it has broken out sparsely and does not have the signs of a grave disease; but if it should break out close together over the entire body, they call it confluent smallpox [*miavorats tsaghik*], which is perilous. 76. Smallpox undergoes four stages of change: first it produces fever, then it fills up and takes on pus, afterwards it subsides, and finally it dries up. 77. In the first stage, the head begins to ache, fever comes on, [the patient] becomes delirious, and the whole body grows weak; the appetite (*ishtah*) is bound, the stomach is nauseated, he vomits from the mouth, and a foul odor issues forth. At times there also occurs constipation of the bowels or diarrhea, and at times bleeding from the nose; the back aches, [and] he desires always to lie prostrate or to be asleep; [in] sl[eep]...

(*) This brief treatise upon natural smallpox sets forth the symptoms of this disease, its care, and its remedies, to the end that [people] may be able in an orderly manner to guard against and administer medicine [for it] wherever this fearsome and contagious disease may appear, which so often snatches away many children from the embrace of their parents. In all well-ordered states, they disseminate among the people, in various languages, instructional books upon the manner of inoculating [against] smallpox and preserving [the body from it]. If misfortune should befall a child not yet inoculated against smallpox, the cause is the carelessness of the parents, who are obligated to have those who have not contracted smallpox—especially newborn infants, who pass through it more easily—inoculated in good time, whereby they shall also preserve them from death, from blindness, and from being ravaged by smallpox.