Note 22 — Chapter II

In scarlatina the affection of the skin modifies the febrile symptoms, as has just been said, considerably: in small-pox exceedingly. If, on this account, any one enamoured of nosological distinctions should wish to separate these varieties of disease, it might be done by dividing continued fever into—

1. Continued fever without an eruption;

Synochus mitior, Typhus mitior,

—— gravior, —— gravior:

2. Continued fever with an eruption;

Scarlatina, Variola,

Synochodes, Synochodes,

Typhodes, Typhodes:

and so on of all the Exanthemata.

Although the eruption may, and without doubt does give rise to some peculiar symptoms and so modifies the fever, yet the true character of the disease, or the disease as a subject of medical treatment, depends entirely on the nature, that is in truth on the intensity of the fever. If, therefore, the Exanthemata can find no place under the genus fever consistently with the principles of nosological arrangement, it appears to me that these artificial distinctions ought to be abandoned: because it is better to reject nosology, than to overlook or to mistake pathology.