PROPERTIES OS' THE GUTTA. 
29 
Since writing the foregoing observations I have had an official 
intimation from Penang of the vaccine virus transmitted in the Gutta 
capsules having been received in good order, and of its having suc¬ 
ceeded most satisfactorily. I have also opened a capsule containing 
a vaccine crust that had been kept here for one month, and it also 
seems to have lost none of its efficacy as the case inoculated has 
taken. This will appear the more striking when it is recollected that 
to preserve the vaccine virus hitherto in Singapore even for a few 
days has been almost impossible,—that this Settlement, notwithstand¬ 
ing every exertion on the part of both private and public practition¬ 
ers, has been without the benefit of this important prophylactic for 
an interval sometimes of two years,—and that, at all times, the ob¬ 
taining and transmitting this desirable remedy has been a cause of 
trouble and difficulty to all the medical officers l have ever met with 
in the Straits. 
I observe in the Mechanics Magazine for March 18i7, a no¬ 
tice of several Patents taken out for the workiug of this article by Mr. 
Charles Hancock, in vvhich an elaborate process is described for 
cleaning the Gutta when pur.e is certainly slightly acid, that is, it will 
smell. The Gutta when pure is certainly slightly acid, that is, it will 
cause a very slight effervescence when put into a solution of soda, but is 
unaffected by liquor potassa. The smell although peculiar is neither 
strong nor unpleasant, so that the article experimented upon must 
have been exceedingly impure, and, possibly, derived a large propor¬ 
tion of its acidity from the admixture and fermentation of other 
vegetable substances. Again, it appears to me that, if the Gutta be 
pure, the very elaborate process described as being necessary for 
cleaning it, is superfluous. The Gutta can be obtained here in a 
perfectly pure state by simply boiling it in hot water until well soft¬ 
ened, and then rolling it out into thin sheets, when, as I have before 
said, all foreign matter can be easily removed, I would recom¬ 
mend that the manufacturers at home should offer a higher price for 
the article if previously strained through doth at the time of being 
collected, when they will receive the Gutta in a slate that will save 
them a vast deal more in trouble and expense than the trifling addi¬ 
tion necessary to the original prime cost. r 
