CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 203 



phates of soda, lime, and magnesia exist in greater quantities than in 

 the talcose formation. 4th. That in the cretaceous formations the 

 chloride.s and sulphates diminish, and the carbonates of lime and mag- 

 nesia increase. 



Having obtained these results, M. Grange says that he thus finds that 

 magnesia exists to the amount of 10 to 15 per cent, of the total amount 

 of the salts in the waters of the villages and valleys where goitre and cre- 

 tinism are endemic. In addition to his own observations, he has gath- 

 ered from other sources proofs that, in Switzerland, Piedmont, the Vos- 

 ges, Pyrenees, and all other places where the goitre and cretinism pre- 

 vail, similar rocks exist, which would give rise to a similar quantity of 

 magnesia in the water. " It follows, then, that if the waters be, as is 

 generally believed, the proximate cause of goitre and cretinism, we may 

 refer the deleterious action of the waters to the salts of magnesia, 

 or perhaps to the presence of these and the absence of a sufficient 

 quantity of lime for the wants of the animal economy." 



M. Billet has lately published a paper in confirmation of these views 

 of M. Grange. He details many tacts with great minuteness, tracing 

 the goitre even to the water of particular springs in some villages. 

 He also gives some statistics of goitre and cretinism. Among the 

 176,000 inhabitants of the Diocese of Chamberry, 1,187 have one or 

 both of these diseases. In the diocese of Maurienne the number is 

 5,587, out of 63,156 inhabitants. Among the 1,187 diseased persons 

 in the diocese of Chamberry, there are 818 having goitre alone, 163 

 cretinism alone, and 206 having both. In that of Maurienne, there 

 are 4,010 cases of goitre alone, 296 of cretinism alone, and 1,281 of 

 both united. Of the 818 persons in the diocese of Chamberry who 

 have goitre alone, there are 515 females and 303 males. In the dio- 

 cese of Maurienne, 2,170 females to 1,840 males have the goitre alone. 

 Thus females are clearly most liable to the goitre, and among other 

 reasons given for this is the fact that they drink more water and less 

 wine than the males. The cretins are about equally divided between 

 the two sexes, there being in Maurienne 785 females and 783 males. 

 The goitre develops most between the ages of 8 and 15 years, and 

 but few cases commence at a later period. Annales de Chimie, Vol. 

 XXVI. p. 129. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF COPPER IX THE HUMAN BLOOD. 



WE find in the Journal de Chimie et de Pharmacie an article by M. 

 Deschamps on the presence of copper in the human blood. The au- 

 thor states that he came to the conclusion to reject all previous experi- 

 ments, as being indecisive on account of the want of precision and 

 care in making them, and he therefore commenced a series of careful 

 observations. After considering the different processes proposed for 

 the detection of metallic substances in the blood, he adopted one anal- 

 ogous to that which he employed to extract copper from vegetables. 

 The acids and distilled water used contained no metallic substance 

 whatever, the hydrochloric acid being prepared expressly for the pur- 

 pose. The filters were made of paper which was analyzed and found 

 to contain no copper, and they were washed with concentrated nitric 



