Temperatures^ as suggesting a Substitute for Quarantine. S67 



Among them were several fabrics, which were purposely chosen, 

 of the most fugitive colours and delicate textures. After 

 being exposed three hours to a temperature of 180°, and then 

 left a few hours in a room without fire, they were pronounced, 

 by an excellent judge of the articles who furnished the speci- 

 mens, to be perfectly uninjured in every respect. Furs and 

 feathers, similarly heated, underwent no change ; and there 

 can be no doubt that if the apparatus had enabled me conve- 

 niently to have raised steam of increased density, a tempera- 

 ture above 212° Fahrenheit would have done no injury to the 

 delicate and costly articles submitted to it. 



II. The most important point to be ascertained, and that 

 on which the utility of the inquiry hinges, is whether a tem- 

 perature below 212° Fahrenheit is capable of destroying the 

 contagion of Jbmites. The investigation is one of great 

 nicety, and involves considerable difficulties. It was en- 

 tirely out of my power to try the agency of heat on those 

 contagions which propagate the formidable diseases of cho- 

 lera, plague, scarlatina, typhus, &c. The only way, in which 

 I could arrive at an analogical inference respecting the de- 

 composing power of heat over such contagions, was by deter- 

 mining its effect on some kind of infectious matter which as- 

 sumes a tangible form, and can in that form be submitted to 

 experiments ; and which admits also of being afterwards tested 

 by justifiable trials on healthy persons. Nothing presented 

 itself to me, on consideration, so well adapted to fulfil all these 

 conditions, as the matter of cow-pock. On mentioning my 

 views to Mr. Roberton,one of the surgeons of the Manchester 

 Lying-in Hospital, he obligingly suppplied me with vaccine 

 lymph, taken from pustules of unequivocal character; and 

 after the lymph had been subjected to high temperatures, he 

 directed the insertion of it to be made, in the usual way, 

 into the arms of healthy children. The trials were conduct- 

 ed, and the results registered, by Mr. Gee, the House-Apo- 

 thecary of the Hospital. 



1. Vaccine lymph, dried at the temperature of the atmo- 

 sphere on small bits of window-glass, was exposed to a heat of 

 180° Fahrenheit during four hours. Three healthy children 

 of proper age were inoculated with this mattei' without any 

 effect ; but being afterwards vaccinated with fresh matter, they 

 all took the disease. 



2. Lynijih heated, during the same period, at a tempera- 

 ture varying from 120° to MO", generally 1:30% was inserted 

 without ellbct into the arms of two healthy children, who were 

 afterwards successfully vaccinated with recent matter. 



3. Four pieces of window-glass, on which recent vaccine 



lymph 



