bited to us by most of the other productions of the animal kingdom! In both cases, the progress of the phænomena is similar, their modifications are comparable, and their results are equally useful and equally indispensable to the preservation of the beings which produce them. In this way, by the play of their lungs and gills, the mammiferæ and fishes can renew the portion of air or liquid which surrounds or penetrates them in the same way also, by alternate contractions and dilatations of their umbrella, the medusæ have the faculty of replacing by means of new water that which is immediately in contact with them; and this change is perhaps still more indispensable to them than to the animals with which we compare them in this respect. The abundance of their excretions is in effect so considerable, nature is so particular in this respect, that they could not live long, and they would actually die in the purest sea-water, if we neglected to change it very often. We think there ought to be no hesitation, therefore, after the important facts which we have established, in granting to the oscillations of the medusæ, independently of the locomotive power, which is their peculiarity, two other analogous functions; the one being the system of general contractibility, the other that of the respiration of the most perfect animals. This interesting analogy does not seem to have escaped the ancients at least we may conjecture thus much from the Greek names of Hali Pleumon, Pleumon Alios, Pneumon Thalassios, Pneumon Thalastios, Pneumon Thalattios, by which Aristotle, Dioscorides, Kiranides-Kirani, and some others have designated the medusæ. The Romans also gave the denomination of Pulmo marinus to these same zoophytes, a name which has since been used by modern authors; such as Gyllius, Massarius, Ruellius, Cordus, Rivius, Belen, Matthiolus, Aldrovandus, and Merret. The Italian naturalists call the medusa Polmone marino, and the English, Dutch, and Germans, know it by the name of Sea-lungs. The Poumon marin of the French authors refers to the same idea; which rests on facts so simple, and on a comparison so natural, that it can scarcely be conceived that, among the many eminent naturalists who have recently written on the medusæ, none have directed their attention to this curious part of their history. Spallanzani himself does not appear to have even suspected the interesting connexion in question. Every thing that has been now advanced as to the respiration of the medusæ, supposes that there does not exist in them any kind of apparent respiratory organ, and this in fact is the case with the greatest part of these singular animals there are several, however, which form an important exception to this rule, and which are evidently provided with gills more or less perfect. The equoreæ in this respect present a set of very curious observations. In fact, in those which constitute our first sub-genus, we see at first a singular circle of simple lines, which we have described in another place, and which are to be met with in a very small number of other medusæ ; soon these lines extend, develop, and are transformed into follicules, and into folds so numerous, so delicate and flexible, that we cannot longer doubt that they perform an important part in the history of those animals which have received them from nature; and when, upon a closer inspection of these organs, we discover, as Forskahl has already done, that these follicules are susceptible on being brought together in pairs of forming a multitude of canals, through which water may circulate from the edge of the umbrella to the base of the stomach, it is very sceptical not to regard these innumerable follicules as so many true bronchiæ, perfectly analogous in their structure, distribution, and use, to those of several other marine animals. Thus, it is not only upon a numerous and incontestable series of analogies that the fact of the respiration of the medusæ is founded; the very existence of the organs appropriated to this function cannot leave any reasonable doubt as to the important discovery which we have made. We may even add, in order to remove all kind of uncertainty as to this grand fact in natural history, that there are species of medusæ of an organization still more complex than those above described, and in which we may easily follow all the details of the respiratory system. Such are among others the rhizostomes, the aurelliæ, the cyaneæ, the chrysaorce, and most of the other polystome medusæ. When we come to speak of these last, we shall exhibit in a series of engravings every part of the mechanism of this important function, of which the equoreæ furnish but an imperfect illustration. [To be continued.] LXVI. Re LXVI. Report from the VACCINE ESTABLISHMENT, 1811. To the Right Hon. RICHARD RYDER, principal Secretary of State, Home Department, &c. &c. &c. National Vaccine Establishment, March 7, 1811. SIR, THE Board of the National Vaccine Establishment have the honour of submitting to your consideration a statement of their proceedings during the year 1810. They have to report to you, that the surgeons of the nine stations established in London have vaccinated during the last year 3,108 persons, and that 23,362 charges of vaccine lymph have been distributed to various applicants from all parts of the kingdom; being an excess of nearly one-third in the number of persons vaccinated, and in the number of charges of lymph distributed, above that of the preceding year. They have further to report, that no case of failure has occurred, in any individual vaccinated by the surgeons of the nine stations, since the commencement of this establishment; that the few instances of failure, submitted from other quarters to the investigation of this board in the last year, have been asserted without sufficient proof; that such reports of failure as have been received from the country, have been ascertained to rest upon imperfect evidence. They have great satisfaction in being able to state the favourable result of vaccination in the Royal Military Asylum for the Children of Soldiers; and in the Foundling Hospital. At the establishment of the former of these charities, in the year 1803, vaccination was introduced, by order of government; and it continues to be practised at the present time. During the whole of this period, this institution, which contains more than eleven hundred children, has lost but one of them by small-pox, and that individual had not been vaccinated, in consequence of having been declared by the mother to have passed through the small-pox in infancy. In the latter institution, no death has occurred by small-pox, since the introduction of vaccination in the year 1801; from which period, every child has been vaccinated on its admission to the charity; and in no instauce has the preventive power of vaccination been discredited, although many of the children have been repeatedly inoculated with the matter of small-pox, and been submitted to the influence of its contagion. They have also the satisfaction of being able to state, that similar success has attended the practice of vaccination at the Lying-in-Charity at Manchester, where, in the space space of nine years, more than nine thousand persons have been effectually vaccinated; and that by a report received from Glasgow, it appears, that of fifteen thousand five hundred persons who have undergone vaccine inoculation in that city during the last ten years, no individual has been known to have been subsequently affected with smallpox. It is with a very different feeling that the board are induced to call your attention to the number of deaths from small-pox, announced in the bills of mortality of the year 1810, amounting to 1,198, which, although great, is considerably less than it had been previously to the adoption of that practice. The board are persuaded that this mortality has arisen from contagion having been propagated by inoculated persons, of the poorer class, whose prejudices against vaccination are kept alive by false and mischievous hand-bills, denouncing various imaginary and feigned diseases against all those who have undergone vaccination: and the board have reason to believe, that these bills are issued by persons, in several parts of London, who derive emolument from small-pox inoculation. The board have been induced, by these considerations, to address the information contained in the preceding paragraphs to the committees of charity-schools; and to submit to them the propriety of introducing vaccination into their respective establishments, and among the poor in general. Besides the duty of superintending the practice of vaccination in London, they have been engaged in an extensive correspondence with several vaccine establishments in the provincial towns; and they acknowledge with pleasure, the readiness with which many of these bodies have communicated information. From these sources, They are enabled to state, that the practitioners of the highest respectability in the country have been earnestly engaged in promoting the practice of vaccination, by the weight of their authority and example: That in the principal county towns, gratuitous vaccinationof the poor is practised, either at public institutions, or by private practitioners, on an extensive scale: That, among the superior classes of society in the country, vaccination is very generally adopted: That the prejudices of the lower orders, excited against the practice by interested persons, still exist, but appear to be gradually yielding to a conviction of its benefit. The 1 The information received from Scotland is of a very favourable nature, and it will appear from the annexed Reports of the College of Physicians, the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, that the practice of vaccination is universal among the higher orders of society; and that, in the opinion of these learned bodies, the mortality from small-pox has decreased in proportion as vaccination has advanced in that part of the united kingdom. The Reports of the Vaccine Establishment instituted at Dublin, under the patronage of the Lord Lieutenant, state, that vaccination continues to make progress in that city, and in Ireland generally; and that the prejudices against it are subsiding. The board have also received very favourable accounts of the progress of vaccination in India; and they have the honour to subjoin a Statement, from which it appears, that by vaccination the ravage of small-pox has been repeatedly prevented, and the disorder exterminated in the Island of Ceylon. The board, guided by the inferences which facts reported to them from undoubted authority and actual observations have furnished, declare their unabated confidence in the preventive power of vaccination, and their satisfaction with the gradual and temperate progress by which this practice is advancing; that the local and constitutional maladies, which frequently follow the small-pox, rarely (if ever) succeed to vaccine inoculation; that it produces neither peculiar eruptions nor new disorders of any kind; and that they are of opinion, that by perseverance in the present measures, vaccination will in a few years become generally adopted. The board have great pleasure in stating that the money granted by parliament during the last session has been sufficient to defray the expenses of the year 1810; and they are of opinion that the same sum will be adequate to the expenditure of the current year. By order of the Board, L. PEPYS, APPENDIX to the REPORT from the National VACCINE Establishment ;-viz. The Report of The College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The Report of The College and Corporation of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Vol. 37. No. 157. May 1811. |