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. 



It may be considered, then, as established by the experiments 

 which have been related, — 1st. 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 

 o( 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 sufficiently strong to render it desira- 

 ble that it should become the parent of experiments. It is with that 

 view only that I 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 copper, or 

 of tinned or cast iron, of any convenient shape, with a sufficient space 

 between the two vessels for containing steam, and an interior cavity 

 of due size for a receptacle of the articles to be disinfected, is 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 fire-place 

 under the boiler, which will ensure the destruction of the contagious 

 effluvia. The articles should be introduced into the receptacle, not 

 closely packed, but so opened out, that every part of them may be 

 exposed to the necessary temperature. If injury should be appre- 

 hended from over-drying any substance, a small quantity of steam 

 may be suffered to pass through a pipe from the boiler into the re- 



