Varicella

This is a disease of childhood. After pyrexia lasting a few hours, or not more than a day, the eruption of varicella appears, often on the back first of all, as distinct red papulae, which become vesicular in a few hours; the erup­tion is successive during three or four days. The same kind of changes occur in the eruption as in variola, but the disease is more superficial, and the vesicle is unilocular, and it is not generally umbilicated; the contents are serous rather than puriform. On the first day the vesicles are transparent; opalescent on the second and third; on the fourth they shrink and desiccate; and on the sixth the scabs fall off. Sometimes, however, the contents of the vesicles be­come puriform. The general pyrexia is slight.

The prognosis is favourable. If the fever runs high with much disturbance of the system, the patient may require one of the following remedies: Aeon., Bell., Merc, Rhus, Tart, emet., or Verat. v.