4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Biolog. 



leaves any substance, as, for instance, albumen, it loses something it had 

 before, and is no longer the same. In his opinion, bile in the gall bladder is 

 not bile in the chemist's capsule. 



3. Dr. Mitchell stated that in a case which had recently occurred to him after, 

 the death of the mother from phthisis, the abdomen was opened three quarters 

 of an hour after her death, and the child, a well developed infant, was found 

 dead and perfectly rigid. He believed the child to have died some time 

 before the mother, from the fact that rigor mortis does not occur so soon as the 

 time mentioned in well nourished bodies. 



In connection with this subject, Dr. Darrach recalled the ease with which, in 

 some persons, the cutis could be made to rise into weals like those of urticaria. 



Considerable discussion ensued as to the interpretation of the phenomena 

 above mentioned, and as to the amount and situation of the non-striated mus- 

 cular fibre in the skin. 



4. Dr. Hammond exhibited the liver of a rabbit (Lepus domesticus) containing 

 an immense number of eggs of a parasite. The liver was enormously enlarged, 

 and to the naked eye its whole tissue appeared to be supplanted by granular 

 masses contained in cysts ; these bodies when examined by the microscope 

 were seen to be composed of numberless oval cells, containing a distinct nucleus 

 the yolk. Attached to the liver and hanging in the peritoneal cavity were 

 several masses of hydatids, no taeniae or other parasites were found in the 

 stomach or intestines. Eggs of the same character as those above referred to 

 were found by Dr. H. in the spleen. 



Dr. Hammond also alluded to the constant occurrence of entozoa eggs in the 

 spleen of Chelonian reptiles. In a considerable number of specimens of Emys 

 guttata, Emys terrapin, Emys insculpta, and Emys picta which he had dissect- 

 ed, he had never found these bodies absent from the spleen. Drawings of these 

 eggs, as also of those found in the rabbit, were exhibited. 



Dr. Hammond also referred to the common opinion that the lower animals 

 were but little subject to disease. This idea he regarded as erroneous, and 

 tnought that the numerous examinations now made of all classes of animals, 

 would soon demonstrate that man is proportionately much less liable to dis- 

 ease than is generally supposed. 



5. Dr. Leidy exhibited a specimen of human muscle containing numbers of 

 the peculiar cysts described by him in a former number of the American Jour- 

 nal of the Medical Sciences. These cysts appear not to contain entozoa or 

 their eggs. He had also frequently observed them in the skin. They were 

 irregularly stelliform, and consisted of a fibrous investment enclosing numer- 

 ous extremely small granules. 



Dr. Woodward stated that he had been requested to examine these bodies, 

 and that upon so doing microscopially he was able to confirm Dr. Leidy's opin- 

 ion of their structure. The minute granules were insoluble in ether, and there- 

 fore if consisting of fat were probably enveloped in an albuminous coat. 



March. 

 I. Anatomy. 



1. Dr. Packard called attention to the structure of the swimming bladder of 

 the Gar Pike (Lcpidostexis) recently caught in the Delaware, and exhibited a 

 portion of the wall. The inner surface of the air bladder of the gar fish re- 

 cently dissected, presented an arrangement closely resembling that of the 

 heart ; viz : papilliform muscles, or columnee carnce, arising from the wall, and 

 fastened by fine tendinous cords to the edges of tendinous valves, likewise 

 connected with the wall of the bladder. 



Between these structures the surface of the wall displayed ridges of mus- 



[March, 



