'2.68 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1751. 



branches. This opinion was seemingly strengthened by Boccone's observation of 

 the milky juice at the tops and in the cells of coral, and most of all by the Count 

 de Marsigli's discovering, in the year 1706, what he conjectured were the flowers 

 of coral. Both these opinions, countenanced by long time, and great authority, 

 M. de Pcyssonnel has endeavoured to overturn; and to show that these produc- 

 tions were neither stones nor vegetables, but animals ; and that, like oysters, and 

 other shell-fish, nature has empowered them to form themselves a stony dwelling 

 for their protection and support, each according to its kind. 



Some account of M. de Peyssonnel's discoveries was transmitted by him to the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris in the year 1727 ; but they were not much 

 attended to, till Mr. Trembley's discovery of the fresh-water polype. This added 

 much to their weight, and occasioned M. de Jussieu, in the year 1741, to visit 

 the sea-coasts of Normandy, in order to satisfy himself of the nature of these 

 marine productions, and his observations confirmed those of M. de Peyssonnel. 

 The sentiments of that great naturalist M. de Reaumur, on this subject, may 

 be seen at large in the preface to the 6th volume of his history of insects. 



LXXP^I. Concerning Inoculation, in a LeLler from Mr. Rich. Brooke, Sur- 

 geon, to James Parsons, M. D. Secretary to the R. S, for Foreign Corre- 

 spondence, p. 470. / 



In the year 1747, Mr. B. inoculated a young gentleman in Maryland, then 

 about 20 years of age. He made a slight incision, about an inch in length, on 

 the belly of the biceps muscle. In that he laid the lint impregnated with vari- 

 olous matter, covered with a digestive pledget ; then bound them on with a roller. 

 When he went afterwards to look at the arm, the roller being too slack, he found 

 the pledget and lint were moved to the opposite side from the wound ; the inci- 

 sion itself was but a little discoloured, but the part on which the lint lay, after 

 its removal, was inflamed, and full of red pimples. He was afraid that the 

 gentleman would not be affected with the disorder; but he had the fever, erup- 

 tions, &c. at the usual times. 



As he had but about 30 pustules in all, he went through the different stages 

 of the disorder without the least threatening symptom. This induced him to try 

 to communicate the disorder without making any incision, only applying the 

 infected lint to the arm, and confining it with an adhesive plaster. The few 

 patients on whom he tried this method were children, and always with success. 

 The absorbent vessels, he believed in young subjects especially, would always 

 take in a sufficient quantity of the matter to contaminate the whole mass of the 

 circulating fluids, and though the density of the pores, or scaly inspissations of the 

 materia perspirabilis, in adults, might in some measure prevent the disorder from 

 being communicated by contact ; yet friction would easily remove that obstacle ; 

 for by this means we might make the cuticle as thin as we please, and the warmth 



