M. MATERIA MEDICA, THERAPEUTICS, AND HYGIENE.581 



TREATMENT OF SMALL-POX SUBJECTS. 



During the prevalence of small-pox in Paris last spring the 

 police authorities required the bodies of those dying from it 

 to be sponged in a liquid composed of one hundred and 

 eighty grains of carbolic acid in a quart of distilled water. 

 Formerly chloride of calcium was used ; but this had the 

 great inconvenience of rendering it almost impossible for any 

 one to remain in the room with a corpse. The carbolic acid 

 solution in question is said to have all the advantages of chlo- 

 ride of calcium, with none of its inconveniences. 2 JB,Jime 

 18,669. 



VALUE OF REVACCINATION IN SMALL-POX. 



Most of our readers are aware of the extent to which the 

 small-pox has ravaged France, and especially Paris, and of 

 the continued discussion of remedies and indications of the 

 disease. In response to a request from the Minister of the 

 Interior to the Imperial Academy of Medicine the following 

 statement of established facts was returned : First, vaccina- 

 tion is a preservative against small-pox ; second, in every in- 

 stance, after a certain time, revaccination is expedient to se- 

 cure complete exemption from contagion ; third, revaccina- 

 tion is an absolute security from danger; fourth, revaccina- 

 tion is useful at all ages ; fifth, it can be employed without 

 inconvenience during the existence of the epidemic, and it is 

 perfectly well established that in certain localities in the 

 bosom of families, in boarding-schools, and other asrsrlomera- 

 tions of individuals it has succeeded in arresting upon the 

 spot an epidemic just begun ; sixth, the actual epidemic of 

 small-pox, which prevails in Paris and other points of French 

 territory, has supplied a most convincing proof of the pro- 

 tective power of revaccination ; finally, it was stated that in 

 various army corps, and especially in the Garde de Paris, and 

 in many public and private establishments, particularly in 

 some of the municipal schools, the small-pox was entirely 

 checked after revaccination ; and also that the latest statis- 

 tics, especially those collected in the civil hospitals of Paris, 

 prove in the most positive manner that persons recently re- 

 vaccinated have been attacked only in a very small propor- 

 tion, and very lightly, and so as not to figure in the statistics 



