56 Dr Davy's Voyage from England to Barbadoes. 



in breathing in the same manner when the body is cold, when, 

 I have always noticed, directing attention to the part, a distinct 

 feeling of warmth. 



I may give the results of two other trials of temperature, 

 made in the after stoke-hole, where the fires of the fiirnaces 

 are fed, and where, when the furnace-doors were closed, the 

 temperature of the air was about 104° ; when opened, about 

 112°, the moistened bulb- thermometer falling to 94°. After 

 having been there about 7 minutes, a profuse perspiration 

 occurring, I found the temperature under my tongue 99*4 ; 

 hand 97*75 ; pulse 70 ; respirations 20. A quarter of an hour 

 before the temperature tinder the tongue was 98*3 ; of hand 

 97*5 ; pulse 52 ; respirations 15. The temperature of a stoker 

 under the tongue was 99*5. He had been employed a con- 

 siderable time in attending to the fires, dressed in trousers 

 and shirt, and was profusely perspiring. 



It is said that the firemen, and the men employed about the 

 engines generally, notwithstanding the very high temperature 

 to which they are exposed, have, whilst in the West Indies, 

 better health than the common seamen, and are, especially, 

 less liable to fever. Their less liability to fever seems to be a 

 well established fact ; and it certainly is a curious, and, I can- 

 not help thinking, a valuable fact. Does it not tend to shew 

 that a high temperature of about 110-12° is destructive of 

 malaria ] This would be in accordance with what seems to be 

 ascertained relative to the efffect of high temperature in the 

 instance of the contagion of plague, and of vaccine lymph,* 

 rendering them inert. Those who do not adopt this conclu- 



* Vaccine lymph sent from England to the West Indies in the steam- 

 packets, I am informed, has always proved inert. Sent under cover 

 through the Post-ofiice as a letter, it is put into the mail-bags, which are 

 kept in a very hot part of the ship, where wax melts. This temperature 

 may render the lymph useless. In transmitting lymph to tropical coun- 

 tries, especially in steamers, it seems very desirable that the parcel 

 should be addressed to the Purser or Surgeon, with a " N.B. — Vaccine 

 Ijrmph ; to be kept in the coolest place." At present in the West Indies, 

 I am told, that, owing to the inefficiency of the lymph imported, there is 

 a considerable number of persons, especially negroes from the Western 

 coast of Africa, requiring to be vaccinated, and many of them in the 

 public service. 



