Chicken-pox

Chicken-pox, a contagious febrile disease, chiefly of children, and bearing some resemblance to a very mild form of Smallpox (q.v.). Chicken-pox is distinguished by an eruption of vesicles or blebs, which rarely become pustular or yellow, and leave only a very slight incrustation, which falls off in a few days, leaving little or none of the marking or pitting which is such a prominent feature in smallpox. From its vesicular character it has been called the crystal pock. It has been argued that chicken-pox is, in fact, only smallpox modified by previous vaccination; but this opinion, though maintained on good authority, is not accepted by most medical men. It is a disease of little or no danger, the fever being often hardly perceptible, and never lasting long.