ZOOLOGY. 327 



Grafting Animals. Dr. Paul Bert has published a work on the 

 curious subject of animal grafts, lie sin-reeded in making Siamese 

 twins of a couple of rats, and in many other monstrosities. He ex- 

 claims, "it is a surprising spectacle to see a paw cut from one rat 

 live, grow, finish its ossification, and regenerate its nerves, under the 

 skin of another; and when we want a plume of feathers under the skin 

 of a dog, what a miracle to see the interrupted vital phenomena re- 

 sume their course, and the fragment of a bird receive nourishment 

 from the blood of a mammal. 11 Intellectual Observer. 



Cur'utus Vital Statistics. The following curious statistics appear 

 in the Report of the Scottish Registrar-General of births, deaths, and 

 marriages, for 1864, and illustrate the effect of town life on the human 

 race. The officer in question says : It is a well-known fact that a 

 residence in towns weakens the vitality of persons living there. This, 

 as yet, has chiefly been attempted to be proved by demonstrating the 

 much larger amount of sickness and death which annually result in a 

 town population as compared with one residing in a rural district. 

 But the proportion of births to the marriages, and, better still, the 

 proportion of births to the married women at the childbearing ages, 

 demonstrates the fact in as pointed a manner, while it is not liable to 

 many of the objections which might be urged against the ordinary 

 modes of proving that fact. The insular and mainland rural districts 

 gave a result absolutely identical, only requiring 302 wives, from 15 

 to 45 years of age, to produce 100 children within the year ; while the 

 wives residing in the town district had their vitality so deteriorated by 

 their town residence that it required 333 wives to produce 100 children. 



Electricity and Asthma. M. Poggioli describes to the French Acad- 

 emy the success which he experienced in treating asthma by electricity. 

 He considers this remedy applicable to true asthma only, which is a 

 nervous disorder of the respiratory apparatus, usually occurring periodically 

 and in paroxysms, and not to asthmatic symptoms resulting from heart 

 disease or pulmonary emphysema. 



Electricity and Bright's Disease. M. Namias has also communicated 

 to the French Academy a case in which the obstacle to the separation of 

 urea from the blood was removed by the application of galvanism to the 

 loins of the patient for half an hour. Twelve of Daniell's cells were 

 employed, and the quantity of urine and urea much increased. More 

 albumen was also secreted, but M. Namias states that this was of small 

 consequence compared with the beneiit resulting from a greater elimina- 

 tion of urea. 



Effects of Consanguineous Marriages. M. Bailey has called the at- 

 tention of the French Academy to a remarkable result of a very singular 

 marriage of this kind. He says, " the father and mother enjoyed good 

 health ; the father was born in lawful wedlock ; the mother somewhat older, 

 came from a foundling hospital. From this union resulted in succession four 

 infants, stillborn ; the fifth is deaf and dumb in an asylum at Rome ; the 

 sixth is a dwarf, and the seventh has not at present exhibited any pecul- 

 iarity. It is now known that the individuals so afflicted in their de- 

 scendants, are brother and sister, children of the same father and mother. 

 The girl, born before marriage, was deserted by her parents, was never 

 reclaimed bv them, and was ignorant who they were." M. Bailey proposes 

 that special inquiries should be made in deaf and dumb asylums concerning 



