1822.] 
wrong. There may be, and I hope 
are, honest pensioners: but a pensioner 
cannot, from his situation, ever be enti- 
tiled to the character of an oracle; 
advice and opinions coming through 
such channels will ever be suspected. 
How much of importance have the 
opinions and conduct of Mr. Burke 
lost by his pension ! 
JAMES JENNINGS. 
London, March 12, 1822. 
—=z_—— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N consequence of your Report on 
Vaccination, may I beg to refer 
you to the following recent treatises 
on the subject? 
A Statement of Facts, tending to esta- 
blish an Estimate of the present State and 
true Value of Vaccination; by Sir Gilbert 
Blane, bart. 8vo. (18 pp.) 
An Account of the Varioloid Epidemic 
which has lately prevailed in Edinburgh, 
and other parts of Scotland; with Obser- 
vations on the Identity of Chicken-pox 
with Modified Small-pox: in a Letter to 
Sir James M‘Gregor; by J. Thomson, 
M.D. F.R.S. 
A History of the Variolous Epidemic 
which occurred in Norwich in the year 
1819, and destroyed 530 individuals: with 
an Estimate of the Protection afforded by 
Vaccination; by John Cross. 
The Medical Repository of London, 
edited by Dr. Uwins, who contributes 
to your Monthly Medical Reports, 
contains a copious review and analysis 
of Mr. Cross’s valuable work. I will 
cite a few sentences from the review: 
—“Ten thousand vaccinated indivi- 
duals were living at Norwich in the 
midst of the contaminated atmosphere, 
while 530 deaths occurred in the course 
of twelve months amongst little more 
than three thousand persons, who had 
neglected that beneficent provision— 
the Vaccine. 
A Member or THE CoLLeGe 
Feb. 27. oF SURGEONS. 
P.S.—You do not seem at all aware of 
the distinction there is betwixt regular 
small-pox and the modified form of the 
disease subsequent to vaccination.—Ex- 
cuse this, in haste, from one who wishes 
well to your exertions in the “ Cause of 
Truth.” 
—_—_— 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
{ INCLINE to agree with Mr. 
Bakewell, in your last Miscellany, 
as to the principle of safety in the ex- 
ploration of mines, 
On Vaccination.—On Fire-damp, &c. 
299 
In the counties of Gloucester and 
Somerset the terms choke-damp* and 
fire-damp. are perfectly well understood. 
by the working colliers. More than 
sixty years ago I recollect those terms 
to have been in familiar use. The 
terms carbonic acid gas and hydrogen 
gas are of modern invention; the first 
applying to choke-damp, the other to 
fire-damp. 
The precautions suggested by Mr. 
Bakewell I conceive to have been 
well described, but those precautions 
are not easily applicable in mines, the 
shafts of which are placed on the deep 
of the strata ; which decline, as I think, 
from the surface at the rate of twenty 
to twenty-four inches per yard in the 
coal countries hereabout, especially in 
Barton Regis, or Kingswood, Glouces- 
tershire. 
Before the general introduction of 
the fire-engine, of noble invention, it 
was the practice of working adventu- 
rers in that district and others, to sink 
the shaft at a convenient distance from 
the surface, and to work downward, by 
the hand windJace, with decline of the 
strata. Thus the coals were sold at 
less than half the present price; and 
I have now several plots of untouched 
coal land in the same. district, the 
coals of which I would deliver at the 
pit mouth for 3d. to 33d. per bushel. 
Many of the old adventurers ac- 
quired a decent property, bequeathing 
to their posterity,—some not very dis- 
tant neighbours of mine, I know, now 
possessing the fruit of such their ma- 
nual industry. 
It is pretty generally known, that I 
never was over friendly to the applica- 
tion of costly machinery, tending to 
supersede manual Jabour, or to boot- 
less waste of human life; and hath not 
such my presentiment been too fatally 
exemplified, even in the fire-engine, in 
expensive threshing-machines, in cum- 
brous apparatus for agricultural pur- 
poses, in spinning and weaving ma- 
chines, in clothing machinery of nume- 
rous descriptions, and in all of which 
many millions on millions sterling have 
been sunk, never agai to rise? 
Probably the old lead mine, to 
which Mr. Bakewell adverts, might 
have been wrought before the Roman 
name had existence ; for the Carthagi- 
nians and other nations are well sup- 
* Under the word Damp, in Bailey’s 
Dictionary, fourth edition, the terms are 
correctly defined, 
posed 
