in the house in which she lived. About this time her son was attacked with very violent fever, succeeded by a copious eruption all over the face and body, which was declared by Mr. Smith, an apothecary who attended him, to be the small-pox, and which was ten or twelve days before it completely scabbed and dried off.

Some time after this, a brother of her husband, a medical man, who had not seen the child during its illness, inoculated him for the small-pox, in order to insure his complete security; a small pimple on the part was only formed, which soon disappeared, and no fever or eruption ensued. About six weeks ago, this boy, now eleven years old, was attacked with fever, followed with an eruption, which broke out on the face, body, and limbs, exhibiting the ordinary appearance of small-pox, and which turned on the eighth day.

Mr. Kerrison, of New Burlington-street, who attended this boy, states, that the eruption exhibited the exact appearance, and passed through all the stages of distinct smallpox. He also froin this boy inoculated a child who had fever at the usual time, followed by a slight variolous eruption.

The history of the former disease was procured from Mrs. Godwin, and the history of the second attack of small-pox from Mr. Kerrison, by Mr. Moore, director of vaccination at this establishment.

IV. Case of Peter Sylvester, No. 10, Cross Street, Carnaby

Market.

This boy's parents are both dead. He was born on June 7th, 1798, and on the 21st of February following was inoculated for the small pox by Mr. Ring, of New-street, surgeon. Mr. Ring showed the director of vaccination at this establishment, his account book of that period, in which there is a charge regularly entered for inoculating this boy for the small-pox.

The cicatrix on his arm is still conspicuous, and six or seven small-pox pits, occasioned by the former eruption, have marked his face.

On the 24th of June last, this boy was taken ill with fever; on the 27th an eruption on the skin took place. Mr. Moore, the director, saw him on the 30th: the spots on the skin were very numerous, but distinct, and the skin round their bases was inflamed; many had formed within the mouth and throat.

July 1st, the eruption has now assumed the appearance

of

of genuine small-pox, the pustules are augmenting, and the face is beginning to swell. 2d. The pustules are larger, and the face much swelled. 3d. The pustules on the face are at the height, and the eyes are nearly closed. 4th. The pustules on the face have all begun to turn; all fever is gone.

This case is drawn up from the notes of Mr. Moore. The case was visited by several members of the Board, and by many other medical gentlemen of the highest respectability.

From the period at which the violent opposition to smallpox inoculation subsided, till the establishment of vaccination, no reasonable parent has refused to allow his children the benefit of inoculation, although it has been generally acknowledged that the inoculation of the small-pox sometimes produces a fatal disease; and if at that time the instances in which the natural small pox had occurred after inoculation, had been communicated to the public, every intelligent man would undoubtedly have still continued the same course, from a desire of affording his children the best chance of safety, although his confidence in the absolute security from natural small-pox must have been in some degree abated.

In the same manner, no effect, injurious to vaccination ought to result from the knowledge of the above failures. Parents always had been apprised that there were occasional failures of vaccination, but they were always aware that none of their children would die of vaccine inoculation; and that when it failed, the succeeding small-pox was almost always much mitigated and disarmed of half its terrors. It was natural therefore, that they should choose vaccination. as the less dangerous disorder, and the same reason still exists for their perseverance in that choice. If there be constitutions, which are twice susceptible of small-pox, a disorder which produces a violent action upon the human frame, and often destroys life, it is natural to expect that vaccination should not in every instance prevent the smallpox, and that the anomaly which occurs in the one disease should likewise take place in the other. It is ever to be kept in view, that the number of deaths from inoculated small-pox, exceeds the number of failures of vaccination. It appears from the present state of our information, that one person in three hundred dies from the inoculated smallpox, and that there is perhaps one failure in a thousand after vaccination. An individual, who, under such circumstances, should prefer the inoculation of his children for the small-pox, to submitting them to vaccination, would

be

be guilty of an improvidence similar to that of a parent who should choose for his son a military service, in which there was one chance in three hundred of being killed, in preference to a station, where there was only one chance in a thousand of being slightly wounded.

The Board are of opinion, that vaccination still rests upon the basis on which it was placed by the Reports of the several Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of the United Kingdom, which were laid before Parliament in the year 1807. That the general advantages of vaccination are not discredited by the instances of failure which have recently occurred, the proportion of failures still remaining less in number than the deaths which take place from the inoculated small-pox. They are led by their information to believe, that since this practice has been fully established, no death has in any instance occurred from small-pox after vaccination. That in most of the cases in which vaccination has failed, the small-pox has been a disease remarkably mild, and of unusually short duration; and they are further of opinion, that the severity of the symptoms with which Mr. Grosvenor was affected, forms an exception to a general rule.

That absolute security from the natural small-pox is not even to be attained by small-pox inoculation, is sufficiently evident from the annexed cases; and the Board are enabled to state, that they have been made acquainted with instances of individuals who have twice undergone the natural smallpox.

Under all these circumstances, the Board feel justified in still recommending and promoting vaccination, and in declaring their unabated confidence in this practice. Since in some peculiar frames of constitution the repetition of small-pox is neither prevented by inoculation nor casual infection, the Board are of opinion, that in such peculiar constitutions the occurrence of small-pox after vaccination may be reasonably expected, and perhaps in a greater proportion; but with this admission, they do not hesitate to maintain, that the proportionate advantages of vaccination to individuals and the public, are infinitely greater than those of small-pox inoculation.

They are anxious, that the existence of certain peculiarities of the human frame, by which some individuals are rendered by nature more or less susceptible of eruptive fevers, and of the recurrence of such disorders, should be publicly known; for they feel confident, that a due consideration of these circumstances, and a just feeling of the welfare of the community,

community, will induce the public to prefer a mild disease like vaccination, which where it fails of superseding the small-pox, yet mitigates its violence, and prevents its fatal consequences, to one whose effects are frequently violent; to one which often occasions deformity and blindness; and, when it is contracted by casual infection, has been supposed to destroy one in six in all that it attacks. And it must not be forgotten, that in a public view this constitutes the great objection to inoculation of the small-pox, that by its contagion it disseminates death throughout the empire, whilst vaccination, whatever be the comparative security which it affords to individuals, occasions no subsequent disorder, and has never, by the most violent of its opposers, been charged with producing an epidemical sickness. By Order of the Board,

July 18, 1811.

JAS. HERVEY, Register.

XLI. Observations on the Article "Fermentation," contained in M. CHAPTAL'S Nouveau Cours complet d'Agriculture. By M. DUPORTAL, M. D. Professor of Physic and Chemistry in the Academy of Montpellier, &c.* THE equilibrium in the composition of vegetable sub

stances is speedily destroyed when their life escapes from them. These substances very soon undergo a change in their appearance, the principles which compose them reacting upon each other; they are arranged in a new order, and in new proportions, whence result products very different from those substances which gave rise to their production.

These products vary according to the nature of the substances, and according to the various circumstances which accompany their change. Thus, vegetable substances which are decomposed in some peculiar circumstances, undergo a spontaneous alteration which is called fermentation, of which the product is bread, an intoxicating liquor, or vinegar, according to the matter subjected to fermentation; while recent herbaceous plants, which putrefy, give rise to the formation of mould.

These are the facts pointed out by M. Chaptal in the work I am now to analyse. Examining first the fermentation of vegetables of a fleshy and juicy texture, when collected into a large heap, he details the conditions, the phænomena, and the result of the process. He afterwards considers the operation in each of the separate parts of

* Annales de Chimie, 1810.

which vegetables consist; he confines himself to the three kinds of fermentation, called the pannary, the vinous, and the acetous. We shall follow the author in his development, and make some observations on the most interesting of his facts.

1st. Of the Pannary Fermentation.

The making of bread, the food of almost all Europeans, is a domestic chemical operation, since in it those substances which are the most essential to the sustenance of man undergo a change in their nature. These substances are found united in the meal of the farinaceous seeds, especially in those of wheat, which furnishes the best bread. M. Chaptal has found this latter farina to consist of starch, gluten, mucilage, and sugar. We may add to them the ferment, the vegetable albumen, calcareous phosphate, &c. which must be reckoned in the number of materials which compose it. What share has each of these principles in carrying on the pannary fermentation? It is generally believed that the farina being reduced into a paste, the mu cous saccharine principle undergoes the vinous fermentation, that the starch has a tendency to become acid, and that the gluten and albumen enter into putrefaction.

I cannot entirely accord with this doctrine. It appears to me to be more correct, to suppose that the ferment, after having converted the sugar of the farina into carbonic acid gas, and into alcohol, changes this into acetic acid; that at the same time the gluten and the albumen are in part decomposed, acetic acid is again produced, some ammonia, and more carbonic acid gas, &c.; and that, the starch uniting with the undecomposed gluten, there results a compound, the further alteration of which is prevented by the action of fire, which combines still more intimately these principles.

This theory of the pannary fermentation seems to me to be supported by the following facts.

1st. Those farine which are deprived of the fermenting principle, or those which scarcely contain any of it, always afford heavy bread, although the muco-saccharine principle forms a part of them; for this substance not being a fermentable principle, it cannot ferment of itself, although it does so by means of a ferment. Thus, it is customary to add to the dough a leaven, taken from bread already fermented, or the yeast of beer, as is the practice in Paris.

2. Dough is always acid, notwithstanding that the vola