whole with a proper bandage. The following morning the parts were washed with warm foap and water, and the charcoal was renewed daily, night and morning. Within the space of three days, the fetid odour of the ulcers had entirely disappeared, good pus was formed, and a tendency to heal was manifeft. On the fifth day, the ulcers were all cicatrized, and the integuments affumed a natural and healthy appearance: there was neither tumefaction nor induration vifible. The patient now quitted the Inftitute, and it was afcertained that no relapfe took place afterwards. Several other cafes of the fame disorder are mentioned, in which the charcoal powder proved equally efficacious."

Med. & Chirurg. Review.

From a report lately made by the committee of the hofpital, (Small-pox hospital, London,) it appears that 13,715 perfons have been inoculated for the vaccine disease by the officers of the inftitution fince January 1799. Of these, 2,500 have been fubjected to the variolous inoculation, without fmallpox being produced in a single inftance: nor is it known that any one of the whole has fince been attacked with the latter difeafe. The variolous inoculation has been fo far fuperfeded by the vaccine, that only ten perfons have been inoculated for fmall-pox during the laft fix months. Ibid.

Dr. Sacco of Milan, whofe experiments in proof of the vaccine difeafe originating in the grease of horfes we had lately occafion to notice, makes fome additional obfervations on the fubject which merit attention, as tending to throw light on the nature of morbid poifons in general.

"Hitherto," he remarks, "I have not found any quadruped which may not be infected, more or lefs readily, by the vaccine

virus or by the equine. The virus reproduced in these animals, and introduced into the human fpecies, has also presented the fame refults, as well on the horse as on the dog, the cat, fheep, goats, pigs, calves, and from each of thefe on man. It appears to me certain that dogs are preserved by it from the diftemper peculiar to these animals; as likewife there is every appearance that horses are by the fame means from the ftrangles. I have had already several examples of this, but fufficient time has not yet elapfed to enable me to affirm it pofitively. I have endeavoured moreover to vaccinate birds, but it is very difficult to communicate the difeafe to them; however, with certain precautions in the inoculation, it may be done."

Ibid.

Dr. Sacco of Milan, has lately fent M. de Carro, of Vienna, a glafs tube containing matter taken immediately from the heels of a horse, and another tube with matter from the fame origin, but which had paffed through the medium of the human body. The former was in a gelatinous state; the latter perfectly liquid. Both of them produced the vaccine in the most regular

way.

It has been generally believed, that the vaccine cruft or fcab did not poffefs the faculty of producing the true vaccine puftule, and a difference has been attempted to be fet up between the fmall-pox and the vaccine in this refpect. Mr. Bryce, of Edinburgh, made fome experiments, which prove that the scab, reduced to powder and moistened with water, produces the vaccine as readily as the moft limpid matter. A physician of Vienna, Dr. Uberlacher, has repeated these experiments with fuccefs. This fact appears to be of great importance in practice, by the facility which it furnishes of preferving vaccine matter for a length of time in the form of scab, and of thus conveying it to great distances. Ibid.

It appears by late accounts from Conftantinople, that M. Valli (whom we mentioned in a former number of our Review as having inoculated himself with a mixture of variolous and peftilential virus, and who had expofed himself in various ways to the infection of plague without effect) had recently contracted the plague; but that the fymptoms were lefs intenfe than common, and that he efcaped with the formation of an abfcefs in the leg. A great number of perfons, it is added, at Conftantinople had been vaccinated, with the intention of preferving themselves from the plague.

Ibid.

The late fuppofed failures of vaccination as a preventative of small-pox, and which have become fo numerous as to have excited very general alarm in the minds of the friends of the new practice, render every attempt to afcertain the precife laws of the vaccine poison a very important matter. This confideration has probably been the inducement to the refpectable promulgator of the vaccine inoculation, to offer fome interesting obfervations on the subject through the medium of the Phyfical Journal.

Dr. Jenner obferves, that thofe herpetic eruptions which fo frequently appear among the children of the poor, and which, he thinks, are evidently contagious, often prevent the vaccine virus from producing its correct action. The skin, although it be apparently found at the point of infertion, is nevertheless fo influenced by the disease, as to baffle all our endeavours to produce a correct puftule, and confequently to secure the constitution from the contagion of the fmall pox. Sometimes, however, the true vaccine puftule (Dr. J. still uses this term, though he admits its impropriety) takes place in these cafes, and proves a cure of the herpetic diforder, particularly when this has been of confiderable duration. The fpurious puftule produced from the cause mentioned above generally arrives at maturity, and finishes

It

its progrefs much within the ordinary period of the true. commences with a troublesome itching, and throws out a premature efflorescence, fometimes extenfive, but feldom circumscribed, or of fo vivid a hue as the other: it resembles more a common festering of the skin. The colour of the puftule is yellow, and its contents opaque.

Dr. J. fays, that he has abundant teftimony to prove, that the fluid taken from a spurious vaccine puftule thus excited, is capable of propagating and perpetuating its like; as in the matter of the true vaccine pock, if taken at too late a period. In fuch cafes, the cutaneous disease should be removed, and inoculation re-instituted, when the true vaccine puftule will take place. Dr. J. thinks it probable, that the herpetic condition of the skin at the time of inoculation has been the chief fource of the failures which many practitioners have witnessed in inoculating for the fmall-pox.

Ibid.

In the report of the Vaccine Pock Inftitution, we have an account of a cafe, in which no fign of infection having taken place, appeared till five weeks after the infertion of the vaccine virus.-Mr. Ring gives us another more remarkable instance of the tardy appearance of the pock, in the 11th vol. of the Medical and Phyfical Journal.

"I have" fays he "lately met with a case, which is, perhaps, unparalleled in the annals of inoculation; in which the sign of infection did not appear till the 46th day. A very small, but genuine, vaccine veficle then took place. The child has fince been inoculated repeatedly with the most active matter, but to no purpose."

We have in the fame volume a cafe related by Mr. John Morgan, Surgeon, of the efficacy of vaccination in a child of 7 months, after 5 days expofure to the fmall-pox in her mother,

who had taken it in the natural way. The child had the vaceine very favourably, and continued during the whole time to fuck its mother, without inconvenience. On the 9th day, when the mother was ftill ill of the fmall-pox, the infant was perfectly well.

I have lately fucceeded in exciting the vaccine on the arm of a child, by the eighteenth attempt. In two or three of the previous trials, a fpurious affection was produced. Editor.

The following communication is recommended to the particular attention of apothecaries; as containing some facts highly worthy of their notice.

Report read before the Society of Apothecaries, of Paris: on a Memoir of Cit. Dubuc the elder. By Cit. Defprés, Bouriat, and Boullay.

(From Annales de Chymie, No. 136, an. xi.)

The fociety having charged the above gentlemen to examine a pharmaceutic memoir addressed to them by M. Dubuc, apothecary at Rouen, the following is the substance of their report.

"The author, M. Dubuc, commences by announcing the objects he had in view; which were to demonftrate, ift, that it is essential to fix in a difpenfatory the aerometrical degree of the alkohol directed for extracting the refinous and extractive principles of vegetables: 2d, that it is wrong to use the term rectified fpirit of wine, or fimply Spirit of wine, under which denomination one practitioner employs a fpirit of 18 degrees of strength, another of 32°, 36°, or 38°.

"His experiments relate to five fubftances, all of them important articles of the materia medica; viz. jalap, aloes, ipeca