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george flemlng. 
stituted. Many horses were inoculated, and the conclusion arrived 
at was, that when carried to and cultivated on the cow, after pro¬ 
ducing in mankind, for several generations, local eruptions alto¬ 
gether identical in appearance to vaccinia, the variolic virus of the 
horse only develops the phenomena of variola, as in the bovine 
species. 
Thus it will be seen how earnestly and exhaustively the Lyons 
Commissioners accomplished their task, and what conclusive re¬ 
sults were arrived at. We can find no evidence anywhere in their 
report that the small-pox virus was merely deposited in a little 
pouch, and re-inoculated from it again. On the contrary, marked 
phenomena were developed in every instance, and the crucial 
manner in which one series of experiments was made to test or 
control the results arrived at in another, left no room for doubt 
or error. Many of the experiments were original, particularly 
those on the horse, of which there were nine series. 
The Commissioners, in closing their report, refer to the posi¬ 
tive experiments of Thiele and Ceely as opposed to their negative 
ones—experiments which, they say, were extremely important, 
and which, notwithstanding the erroneous conclusions of their 
authors, will always hold a considerable position in science. 
Thiele and Ceely, they add, each experimenting independently, 
succeeded in giving cow-pox to cattle by inoculating them with 
human variola, and this cow-pox became the origin of an excel¬ 
lent vaccine, which was cultivated in infants for more than twenty 
years, in certain parts of England, Germany, and Russia, and has 
passed through a great number of generations. It is not denied 
that they succeeded in obtaining positive results from their at¬ 
tempts to inoculate the cow with variola; but that which is 
astonishing, after the results arrived at by the Commission, is not 
these positive facts, but the negative results which other experi¬ 
menters almost unanimously acknowledge. But had Thiele and 
Ceely well observed and closely interpreted the facts the manifes¬ 
tation of which they elicited? Is it really true that they suc¬ 
ceeded in converting variola into vaccinia ? The Commissioners 
think not, and are of opinion that the children they inoculated 
with their variolic vaccine had nothing else than small-pox, the 
