CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 195 



Experiments on the tissues of the body are of no value, on account 

 of the blood which they contain. 



ACTION OF HYDROGEN AT DIFFERENT PRESSURES ON ME- 

 TALLIC SOLUTIONS. 



M. N. Beketoff has shown that hydrogen, when under an increased 

 pressure, is capable of precipitating silver and mercury from their 

 saline solutions, and consequently of assuming a place in the series of 

 metallic substitutions. 



The following are the conclusions arrived at from a series of ex- 

 periments : 



1. Common hydrogen, either as a gas or dissolved, displaces certain 

 metals from their solution in acids. The metals with which he suc- 

 ceeded were silver and mercury. 



2. This action depends on the pressure of the gas and the dilution 

 of the salt, or, in other words, on the relative chemical mass of the 

 reducing body. 



3. It is probable that at higher pressures the experiment will suc- 

 ceed with other metals. 



WINE CHARGED WITH GASES. 



In a late number of the Annales de Chimie appears a letter to the 

 eminent chemist, Dumas, from M. Eugene Maumene, of Rheims, giving 

 the results of experiments, during which by means of the air-pump 

 various wines were saturated with oxygen gas. The pressure of eight 

 atmospheres was employed. After several months no trace of acetic 

 acid or any new compound in the wine was perceived. The cham- 

 pagne so treated was sparkling, and when opened disengaged pure 

 oxygen, which rekindled an extinguished taper with the usual little 

 explosion. The taste of the oxygenated wine is not changed, but it 

 produces, after drinking, a very sensible, comfortable warmth, like 

 that from drinking the best of old wines. M. Maumene also describes 

 oxygenated water as producing, when first drunk, no remarkable sen- 

 sation ; but he thinks that improvement in respiration, and even in 

 digestion, ensued after it had been drunk for several days. He also 

 experimented with protoxide of nitrogen. The wine charged with 

 this gas produced the hilarious effects common to the inspiration of 

 the gas itself. 



EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL, CARBONIC ACID, AND THE VARIOUS 

 ANAESTHETICS ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF ANIMALS. 



M. Lallemand communicated recently to the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences a series of experiments, undertaken by MM. Perrin and 

 Duroy, to elucidate this question. Three ounces of alcohol mixed 

 with an equal quantity of water were given in three equal doses, at a 

 quarter of an hour's interval, to a large-sized dog. After the lapse of 

 an hour the animal was in a complete state of intoxication, the mus- 

 cular system being relaxed, the skin and conjunctive perfectly insen- 

 sible to the touch, the pulse one hundred and twenty, and the respi- 

 ration twenty-two per minute. The posterior arches of the last three 



