Another clever invention for saving life and limb has been brought out by Mr J. Lindley, of the Clifton and Kearsley collieries, to prevent accidents from the breaking of the winding-rope when raising or lowering a cage full of miners. This consists in connecting the lower ends of the top rods to a pair of levers mounted on each side of the cage, the other end of the levers being forked and connected to opposite ends of a pair of links which are fastened to the ordinary wooden or iron guide-rods. As soon as the cage is released by the breaking of the rope, the inner arms of the levers rise and force the links together. The inner side of the forks being provided with wedge projections, which come in contact with similar projections on the sides of the links, the cage remains suspended, wedged fast to the guide-rods, instead of being hurled to the bottom, to the probable destruction of its unfortunate occupants. This useful invention should be at once adopted in every colliery and mine in the kingdom, for as a ‘life-saving’ apparatus it certainly admits of no doubt.
VACCINATION.
The following communication from a medical man connected with the Smallpox Ambulance Service of London will be welcomed by all who are interested in the subject of vaccination.
‘Having read,’ says the doctor, ‘with interest the article on “[Vaccination]” in your Journal of September 20, and being brought much in contact with smallpox—about three thousand cases having passed through my hands during the last few months—I hope you will allow me to offer a few remarks on some of the points treated of in your Journal.
The question of the relative protection of calf lymph and of humanised lymph is, as you say, not settled. One of the principal authorities of the present time on smallpox strongly disapproves of calf lymph, and I have been told by others connected with smallpox hospitals that they had known smallpox develop in persons recently vaccinated with calf lymph.
The experiments on animals with cholera bacilli recently described in the medical papers seem to show that the infecting agent, whether it be the bacilli or a materies morbi transported by them, undergoes very important changes by being “cultivated” in the system of animals of a different species from those from which it was first taken.
With respect to the possibility of transmitting certain constitutional diseases by vaccine lymph, I may mention that an eminent authority on smallpox tried to inoculate himself with lymph from diseased children, and came to the conclusion that it is possible, but so difficult, that in practice this risk may be excluded.
With regard to the possibility of infants escaping registration, and consequently vaccination, I have found that the number of unvaccinated persons who come under my care is so small that we may look on the system for securing vaccination of infants as practically nearly perfect, so far as London is concerned.
The protection given by vaccination is not absolutely complete. Persons exposed to smallpox in small rooms, where the doors and windows are rarely open, and the poison is undiluted by abundance of fresh air, contract smallpox whether vaccinated or not. The severity of the disease in the two cases differs, however, so greatly as to establish without doubt the value of vaccination. On the other hand, practical immunity against smallpox is given by comparatively recent vaccination or re-vaccination, when the patient is surrounded by plenty of fresh air, and proper attention is given to cleanliness of the patient’s person and clothing; and amongst the hundreds of persons employed in the metropolitan smallpox hospitals, a case of death from smallpox, when re-vaccination has been successfully performed, is unknown.’