Disinfecting Powers of Increased Temperatures. 113 
had devolved, assured me that he had not, during the last two or 
three years, met with a case which he could more confidently pro- 
nounce to be contagious typhus. Its severity was proved by its ter- 
minating fatally, notwithstanding the most assiduous attentions, on 
the fourteenth day of the disease. During the night, between the 
tenth and eleventh days of the malady, a flannel jacket, made with- 
out sleeves, was placed in contact with the body of the patient. On 
the following day, it was replaced by another ; and that, on the day 
after, by a third ; each of which was worn by her for several hours. 
The first waistcoat, after being submitted to a temperature of 204° 
or 205° Fahr., for an hour and three quarters, was kept beneath, 
and within twelve inches from, the nostrils of a person engaged in 
writing during two hours. The second, after being heated in a sim- 
ilar manner, was worn next the body of the same individual for twa 
hours. The third, after exposure to beat, was kept in an air-tight 
tin canister for twenty-six days, with the view of giving activity to 
any contagious matter, which might possibly have escaped decompo- 
sition. It was then placed within twelve inches of the face of the 
same person for four hours; a gentle current of air being contrived 
to blow upon him, from the flannel during the whole time. No in- 
jurious effects were experienced. 
The negative results thus obtained are only, I am well aware, en-_ 
titled to that proportional share of weight, which would have been 
due to them, if they had formed a part of a numerous series of ex- 
periments. For the reception of contagion, even by a person sit- 
uated within its sphere, depends so much on predisposition, and on 
other circumstances, that a much larger induction of facts would be 
necessary, to establish the absence of femites in any case like the 
foregoing. I do not, therefore lay much stress on so limited a num- 
ber of facts. It may be proper however, to mention, that, during 
the first trial, the person subjected to it was much fatigued by pre- 
vious exercise ; and that at the close of it he had observed an un- 
broken fast of eight hours,—a state of the animal system extremely 
favorable to the efficacy of contagion, if any had been present. . 
In Scarlatina, however, (including both scarl. simplea. and searl. 
anginosa), we have a disease admirably adapted for furnishing the 
necessary evidence. No one doubts of its being infectious. Per- 
haps, indeed, of all the diseases with which nosologists have arranged it 
(the exanthemata,) it gives birth to the most active and durable con- 
Von. XXI.—WNo. 1. 15 
