What is smallpox?
Smallpox is an acute infectious disease in which a special type of vesicles come out which are first of simple blood colour and then become fluid and eventually become scabs on them and gradually they fall off themselves.
What is the cause of smallpox?
The main cause of smallpox is the Variola virus.
Smallpox is more prevalent up to the age of 4 years, but sometimes it occurs even in puberty.
The maximum outbreak of smallpox occurs from February to April.
The smallpox virus enters the body through the mucous membranes of the mouth, nostrils and respiratory tract.
The outbreak of smallpox lasts for 7 to 21 days in the body. The average is 12 days.
What is the symptom of smallpox?
1. Having a fever-
In the beginning of this disease, there is fever with cold. During fever, there are symptoms of severe pain in the cranium, groin and calf, nausea, vomiting, convulsions and delirium. Along with having fever, there is increased thirst. Heat, dryness of the skin, the face becomes red and the tongue becomes crusty. And the fever persists up to 103-4 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 consecutive days. On the fourth day the fever subsides and the eruptions start coming out. After 2-3 days the fever starts again due to infection in the eruptions. The fever ends on its own after the eruption becomes cracked and dried up.
2. Explosion-
The actual eruptions first appear on the head and temples on the third or fourth day after the onset of fever, followed by succession to the face, forearm, mandible, mid-body, back, abdomen, mucous membranes of the mouth and inside the eyes.
Note- The eruptions first appear on the frontal and finally on the soles of the feet, this is the main feature of smallpox.
After the rash comes out, the patient gets some relief due to the reduction of symptoms like fever etc. There is also a slight itching in the body while the eruption comes out.
The skin near the eruption is bloodshot. Due to the tension in the eruptions, there is pain, itching and discomfort in the skin and body.
Fever increases due to the purulent origin in eruptions. If there is no disturbance, after 3-4 days they start drying out in the sequence of eruptions.
Gradually, when the eruptions dry up, hooves are formed in its place and fall off on their own in the third-fourth week. But it takes a few days for the soles of the hands and feet to fall off.
After the crack is removed, the stains are visible buried in the middle.
Apart from the skin, eruptions (pimples) also come out in places like lips, mouth, anus, larynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, rectum, va-gina, eyes etc. Often they are not purulent.
A special kind of odor emanates from the body due to the explosions containing puy.
There are many different types of smallpox in terms of severity.
1. Chickenpox with mild eruption - there is no fever in this and there is no secondary infection and the rash is less.
2. Conjunctival type- In this, more grains come out but there are different numbers.
3. Involved type- In this, due to excessive release of grains, it takes a boil-like form and from the beginning there is asymmetry.
4. Krishna Masurika- In this, the chances of bleeding, abnormality and death from other sources are high.
5. Hemorrhagic type- This is the most common type. It causes bleeding after the eruptions and eventually death.
Note- Due to the successful preparation of smallpox vaccine, now the complete solution of smallpox has been done. Now smallpox patients are rarely seen.
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