Other Names:
Variola

Symptoms:
It takes 12-14 days for the disease to develop after exposure. Several days of discomfort is followed by a severe chill, intense headache, terrible pain in the back and limbs, vomiting, fever, loss of appetite, and sometimes convulsions.

Then the fever lowers and the eruptions appear. The pain disappears, but the highly contagious disease can still be given to others.

The rash of smallpox initially consists of dark red papules, especially on the forehead, neck and wrists. They gradually fill with clear serum, becoming vesicles, which become depressed at their centers and then fill with pus (called pustules).

Cause:
Unsanitary living conditions, and poor diet.

Treatment:
• Call a physician.

• Keep the sick person in bed with the windows darkened, yet maintaining ventilation and an even, moderate temperature.

• Put him on a fast of juices, give plenty of lemon juice. Follow with a light diet of vegetable broth, oatmeal water, and fruit juices.

• Give high herb enemas, and clean out the bowels.

• When the skin is hot and dry, give him fluids every hour until there is free perspiration.

• If the fever rises above 103o F., reduce it by means of tepid sponges, and tepid enemas.

• Hot fomentations can partially relieve pain in the legs and back.

• Bathe him with goldenseal root tea, or yellow dock root, or burdock root.

• Open the pustules by pricking with a sterilized needle, about 4 days after they come to a head. Then bathe them with hydrogen peroxide.

• Bathing the pustules with goldenseal tea will often keep pitting from occurring. Another formula is to mix goldenseal with Vaseline and apply to the pustules to keep from pitting. Yet another formula is bathing the skin with a tea of yellow dock root and goldenseal.