experiment of this sort we call this part of the divided nerve its "upper" end; the end of the nerve which lies below the point of section is called the "lower" end. Watch the vessels of the right ear while I faradise (stimulate with faradic or induced electricity) the upper end of the nerve. You see that they contract, and the ear in consequence becomes blanched. We shall wait for a few seconds until the irritation passes off. Now look at the right pupil while I irritate the upper end of the nerve again. You see that it dilates enormously under the influence of the irritation. We have seen then that on paralysing the cervical sympathetic blood-vessels of the ear on that same side dilate, and the pupil on the same side contracts, and that on stimulating the upper or cranial end of the divided nerve precisely the converse takes place in both parts. We therefore conclude that this nerve contains fibres whose function is to cause the vessels of the ear to contract and the pupil to dilate, and that these fibres convey their influence up the neck. As I want to keep the experiment as simple as possible I shall not stimulate the lower end of this nerve at present. I cut down the phrenic, and I open the abdomen in order that you may see the diaphragm. You see that at intervals both sides of the diaphragm are drawn downwards. I divide the right phrenic nerve in the neck. Now look at the right side of the diaphragm. It remains quite loose and flabby when the left side is drawn down instead of being tightly drawn down with it as before. I shall now irritate the lower end of the nerve. Watch the diaphragm. You see that the right half is drawn violently downwards during the irritation, and that the flabby state returns when I stop the irritation of the nerve. We conclude that the right phrenic nerve contains motor fibres for the right half of the diaphragm, and that these influences pass through the nerve down the neck.-Idem, Lancet, No. 2,483, p. 439.

(155) Under this head some general questions regarding sensory nerves were discussed, and the mode of estimating the amount of ordinary sensibility in a part was demonstrated,

I take another frog. In this case I open the cranium and remove the brain and medulla oblongata.—Idem, Lancet, No. 2,487, p. 565.

(156.) He was aware that there were some who entertained the idea that vivisection was not necessary when it had for its object the mere demonstration for educational purposes of facts already known.

Those who held this doctrine appeared to him to forget that physiology was an experimental science, and that no right conception of the subject could be obtained unless the students were shown the experiments that were necessary for the demonstration of certain facts.

Now he maintained that this definite and critical knowledge

regarding the bodily organism could not be attained unless their students were shown experiments on living animals.-Speech of Professor Rutherford at the British Medical Association, Edinburgh, 1875. -Scotsman.

(157.)-In recent years the teaching of physiology had made a great stride in this country. Laboratories duly appointed had been and were being organised; and the method of physiological instruction had in most instances passed from the mere prelection illustrated by diagrams to an experimental exposition of the subject. In his student days the latter element was wanting, and at this moment there was distinct danger of a return to something like that miserable mode of instruction in consequence of the fanatical clamour of a number of persons excited, it must be admitted, by one or two members of their own profession.

Physiology was an experimental science, and that no right conception of the subject could be obtained unless the student was shown the experiments that were necessary for the demonstration of certain facts.

Had not every teacher repeatedly observed the altogether different mental attitude which students assumed the moment he passed from mere description to a demonstration of phenomena ? He far more forcibly arrested their attention, and far more deeply imprinted on their minds the facts he would bring home to them.

Definite and critical knowledge regarding the bodily organism could not be attained unless their students were shown experiments on living animals, and he held that those authorities who seemed to be of opinion that this method of tuition might be dispensed with, were entirely overlooking the vast importance, not only to the student himself, but to the whole race, of an experimental manner of laying the foundation of a knowledge of the institutes of medicine.

It was not necessary for a sound physiological education that their students should be shown all the experiments that were needed to demonstrate physiological truths; they probably did enough if they showed experiments on the cardinal points of physiology; and he averred that all the experiments on the higher animals that were really required for the purpose of education, could be performed with the aid of narcotics. Seeing that this was so, why should it be that some had become convinced that, in consequence of the present inflamed state of the popular mind on the subject of vivisection, the right education of medical students must be abandoned? The popular mind had been abused by inaccurate and misleading statements regarding both their motives and their actions. He main

tained that a great and deplorable error was committed when the unreasonable clamour of the anti-vivisectionists was met in the spirit of compromise instead of the spirit of stern resistance. He believed that the unfortunate Vivisection Bill which was laid on the table of Parliament conferred a dignity on the policy of the anti-vivisectionists which, but for that bill, it would probably never have possessed. It was true that there had been a withdrawal of that singular bill, according to which they were to have been fined fifty pounds, or to have been sent to prison for two months, if they had dared to show to their students any experiments even upon a narcotised animal. But the effect of the bill was not effaced; the increased boldness which it had given to the pretensions of the anti-vivisectionists was only too evident. All that they could now hope was that the good sense of the Legislature would in the end prevail, and that it would do nothing to hamper the education of medical men.

The learned professor went on to explain, with the help of numerous diagrams, the result of a series of experiments he had made in reference to the action of certain drugs on the biliary secretion of the dog. Dr. Rutherford, Lancet, No. 2,711, pp. 238-9.

(158.)-M. Claude Bernard is delivering a course of very interesting lectures at the College de France "On the Art of Experimenting." -Professor Brown-Séquard, Lancet, No 2,380, p. 514.

(159.) The last nine lectures have been more recently delivered, from 1864-70, and treat of experimental pathology. In them he points out the immense value of this kind and mode of research, the necessity for the construction of special physiological laboratories (like those of Kühne at Amsterdam, and Ludwig at Leipzig) wherever physiology is taught, in order that theory and practice may go hand in hand. Referring to the absurd scruples of the antivivisectionists, he points out the necessity that exists for the daily slaughter of a large number of the lower animals.-M. Bernard, Lancet, No. 2,535, p. 438.

(160.)-Hence a student should spend much of his time in the dissecting room, the museum, the chemical and physiological laboratory, and, above all, in the dispensary and the medical and surgical wards, and post-mostem room of a good hospital. And you will permit me to say that no university school in the present day can overlook, without committing suicide, the necessity of establishing a physiological laboratory, and including pathological anatomy in its curriculum of study.-Dr. Ross, British Medical Fournal, No. 738, p. 238.

(161.)-The future reputation of Dr. Marshall Hall as a scientific man will rest principally upon his original researches into the functions of the nervous system, particularly into the functions of the spinal cord.

We are assembled here to-day for a common object and for a good object, not merely to do honour to the memory of Dr. Marshall Hall, but to endeavour to establish some memorial which shall be of use in stimulating and inciting the junior members of our profession -those who are gifted with talent, those who are gifted with the desire of distinguishing themselves-to spend some of those dreary years of early professional life in original investigations -Dr. Burrows, Lancet, No. 2,371. p. 208.

(162.)-Reference has been made to a little work on physiology lately composed by Professor Huxley for the use of young children at school, in which there are certainly some remarks which should have been expressed in more cautious and guarded language. For instance, little boys and girls are advised that "it is better for testing the presence of sensation to irritate different nerves connected with the chord rather than the cut end of the chord itself;" and how to make rabbits blush artificially is suggested as an interesting experiment: "If in a rabbit the sympathetic nerve which sends branches to the vessels of the head is cut, the ear of the rabbit at once blushes." Considering the natural instincts of children, instruction of this kind would certainly seem dangerously suggestive.-Saturday Review, 1st October, 1874.

(163.)—From the tone of your excellent remarks on the incorrectness of Sir Robert Christison's statement that vivisectors might safely be trusted not to perform cruel experiments, such as would shock the feelings of the community at large, I venture to hope that you will find room for a brief account of an experiment I myself witnessed when a student at the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh.

Woorara was administered to a number of frogs, a poison which destroys all motor power, leaving sensibility unimpaired, if not actually increased, as is well known, the poor creatures being absolutely at the so-called mercy of their tormentors. The frogs were then ripped open, and by a dexterous manipulation of the intestines the mesentery was so far exposed as to be placed under a microscope without being removed from the body of the living animal. In this condition of extreme torture the poor animals remained until fifty or sixty students had examined what was to be seen. At the very least the period of torture cannot have been less than two hours, including the necessary preparation.

Now, your readers will ask for what purpose was all this cruelty?

Simply in order to see whether in the process of inflammation any of the white corpuscles of the blood traverse the walls of the capillaries; a question of not the slightest practical importance, and the solution of which has no kind of effect upon the treatment of inflammation. Furthermore, the experiment thus conducted was not merely wicked and unimportant, but even inconclusive. The best physiologists admit that in order to witness the transudation of the white corpuscles (if such takes place at all) an examination of many hours is necessary. To determine this wholly unimportant question many of the leading physiologists, both in this country and abroad, have subjected hundreds of dogs, cats and frogs to excruciating tortures of many hours duration. But even this is little to be compared with the atrocities enjoined upon students (not for purposes of discovery, but merely in order to acquire manual dexterity, or to form a more vivid conception of established facts) in the Manuals of Practical Physiology.

Surely, when such facts as these are notorious it is too much to expect that the public will quietly stand by and leave poor animals to the mercy of their tormentors. Not even satisfied with this, some physiologists have the effrontery to demand that the torture rooms in which such enormities are perpetrated shall receive not merely the toleration but the pecuniary assistance of Government. faithfully, W. B. A. Scott, M.D., Edin.—Letter to the Echo.

Yours

Dr. J. Burdon-Sanderson's Lectures delivered in the Physiological Laboratory of University College.

(164.)—In 1863 the lamented V. Bezold published his well-known researches on the nervous system of the heart. Among a number of other less important discoveries, he showed for the first time the nature and extent of the influence exercised by the brain and spinal cord on the circulation of the blood. He found that when, in a curarised rabbit or dog, the spinal cord is severed from the brain, the arterial pressure sinks very considerably, while at the same time the number and extent of the contractions of the heart are diminished; and that if, on the other hand, the upper end of the divided spinal cord is irritated below the point of section, the arterial pressure rises to its original level and the heart to its previous activity.

The leading experiment is as follows:-Two centigrammes of curare, dissolved in a cubic centimetre of water, are injected below the skin, and immediately after artificial respiration is begun. This dose is sufficient, as was first shown by V. Bezold himself, to paralyse the extremities so completely that neither stimulation of the cord nor of any muscular nerve produces the slightest contraction of voluntary muscles, while, as we shall see on another occasion, it is not sufficient to interfere with the action of the heart. Respiration of course ceases, but it is maintained, as I have said, mechanically, the means employed for the purpose being a pair of bellows the tube