398 Appendix. 
for three hours. Two children, inoculated by Mr. Gee with this 
matter, received the infection, and the pustules were, in each case, 
remarkably well characterized. From their arms matter was taken, 
with which upwards of forty children have been vaccinated, who have 
gone through the disease in the most satisfactory manner. 
t may be considered, then, as established by the experiments 
which have been related,—Ist. That vaccine matter is not destroyed 
by a temperature of 120° Fahrenheit; and it is even probable that 
it would sustain, without losing its efficiency, a heat several degrees 
higher ;—2ndly, That vaccine lymph is rendered totally inert by 
exposure to-a temperature of 140° Fahrenheit. May we not hence 
infer, that those subtile animal poisons which lie dormant in the state 
of fomites, are likely to be disarmed of their terrors by the same 
simple means? The expectation, I am aware, rests entirely on analogy ; 
but the analogy appears to me sufliciently strong to render it desira- 
ble that it should become the parent of experiments. It is with that 
view only that 1 propose it to the enlightened physicians of this and 
other countries, who have the means of verifying or disproving the 
inference by experiments on the more diffusible and active contagions. 
Until, indeed, the soundness of the analogy has been established by 
a sufficient number of facts of the latter class, no extensive practical 
measures can safely be grounded upon it. 
If a favorable result should, however, issue from these suggestions, 
nothing can be more easy or less expensive in construction, or more 
manageable in use, than an apparatus for subjecting articles inported 
from unclean places, in any quantity, however large, to the disinfect- 
ing agency of a dry heat, without even the slightest injury to the 
quality of. those substances. A double vessel, made of coppers oF 
of tinned or cast iron, of any convenient shape, with a sufficient space 
between the two vessels for éontaining steam, and an interior cayly 
of due size for a receptacle of the articles to be disinfected, 3s the 
essential part of the arrangement. To avoid all risk of the escape 
of any portion of the virus in an undecomposed, and therefore active 
state, a pipe, open at each extremity, may be carried from the re- 
ceptacle into the flue of the chimney, or, better still, into the fir e-place 
under the boiler, which will ensure the destruction of the contagious 
effluvia. The articles should be introduced into the receptacle, (@ 
closely packed, but so opened out, that every part of them may Z 
exposed to the necessary temperature. If injury should be ssa 
hended from over-drying any substance, a small quantity of sgt 
may be suffered to pass through a pipe from the boiler into the r 
. 
