12 Mr. Bartktt's further Observations on (fie [Jan. 



The results which I have obtained, though not ninnerons, are 

 sofficient to show that if we cannot hope to reduce the solubihty 

 of the salts to general principles, it deserves at least a particular 

 attention, expressly in consequence of the anomalies which it 

 exhibits. I abstain at present from drawing any consequence ; 

 I shall wait till I obtain the assistance of new experiments. 



Article II. 



Further Observations on the Use of Gauze Veils as Preservatives 

 from Contagion. x3y Mr. Bartlett. 



(To Dr. Thomson.) 



SIR^ Buckingham, Oct. 11, 1SI9. 



When I suggested, through the medium of your ^H??a/s, the 

 use o( gauze veils as preservatives from contagion, I was not 

 aware that M. Rigaud de ITsle had, in a memoir " On the 

 Physical Properties of Bad or Unwholesome Air," the aria 

 cattiva of the Italians, read at a meeting of the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences at Paris, recommended to those exposed to a dele- 

 terious atmosphere some simple thing as a screen to be placed 

 before the organs of respiration so as to intercept the insalubrious 

 particles mingled with the air they breathe. His paper, although 

 confined to those local causes of epidemics which prevail in 

 districts to which his personal observation had extended, is so 

 replete with information, and so corroborative of the efficacy of 

 the measure which I am desirous to extend to animal effluvia, as 

 well as to miasmata arising from vegetable decomposition, that 

 1 shall, perhaps, be pardoned if 1 avail myself of some of the 

 facts which he adduces. I am led to intrude these remarks upon 

 your notice at this time more particularly from the circumstance 

 of my " suggestion " having been condemned by a medical 

 work * with an asperity, " not to use a harsher term," I was not 

 altogether prepared to expect, nor do I feel conscious of having* 

 at all deserved it. But the use of 



" scalpijig knives instead efpens,^' 



may, without much impropriety, be conceded to the faculty ; I 

 am, therefore, content to allow this great " northern light," the 

 reviewer, (who, by the by, gravely tells the world that contagion 

 is an " animal product," and afterwards expresses, in the very 

 same page, his ignorance of its properties ! +) the triumph of his 

 irony ; while I will oppose to his " want of faith " that " test of 



• Tlie Etlinhiir^h Medical :ind Surgical Journal, No, 61, p. 621, 62?. 

 + Ibid. p. 6'cO. 



