ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 181 



Hsemolymph Glands.* — Dr. W. B. Druininond has studied these 

 organs in sheep, ox, rat, and dog. While obviously closely relate 1 to 

 ordinary lymphatic glands, the hfemolymph glands differ in mode of 

 development, in distribution, and in many details of minute structure. 

 Among these differences the chief are the (usually) comparatively large 

 size of the sinuses, the constant presence of blood in the sinuses, the 

 frequent presence, sometimes in very large numbers, of large hyaline 

 cells containing red corpuscles or pigment in their cytoplasm. There 

 is no sufficient evidence that hfemolymph glands share in the formation 

 of red blood-corpuscles, but they appear to play a very active part in 

 their destruction and in the liberation of pigment, and they'are also 

 centres for the formation of white blood-corpuscles. In some respects 

 the structure agrees with that of the spleen, and it is very likely that 

 some of the bodies described as accessory spleens are really hfemolymph 

 glands. 



c. General. 



Revivification. f — Dr. L. Laloy regards most cases of latent life and 

 subsequent revivification as adaptations either against cold or against 

 drought. He points out that the phenomena are connected by gradations 

 with other phenomena, e.g. the hibernation of plants and animals, and 

 suggests that the secret of the power of reviving may consist in part in 

 an unusually close connection between the water of combination and the 

 protoplasm, and that this admits of the continuance of a minimal amount 

 of molecular movement and metabolism. 



Von Baer and Teleology .% — Prof. Stolzle points out in an interesting 

 historical note that it is erroneous to claim the authority of von Baer in 

 support of the mechanical interpretation of nature, as Kolliker does, 

 for instance, in his recent Erinnerungen. It is perfectly clear from von 

 Baer's writings that he was a teleologist, an idealist, to whom pur- 

 posiventss in organisms seemed ultimately the expression of a meta- 

 physical principle, and therefore more than the necessary result of 

 chemical and physical forces. 



Vitalism.§ — Prof. J. T. Wilson devoted the greater part of his 

 presidential address to the Linnaaan Society of New South Wales to a 

 consideration of Dr. J. S. Haldane's discussion of the problem of vitalism 

 versus mechanism. Wilson does not dispute that physico-chemical 

 theories of living process have broken down all along the line. Yet 

 mechanism after mechanism has been displayed, through the operation 

 of whose chemical and physical properties the functional activity of the 

 organism is subserved. It is true that the residual phenomena un- 

 explained by these mechanisms may in a sense be held to embody the 

 very essence of the mystery of organisation. This is the penalty of 

 the abstract character of the causal principle employed as the instrument 

 of research. But vitalistic interpretation is not one which comes to our 

 rescue when a physical interpretation fails us. It is present with us 

 at every stage, forbidding us ever to mistake a possible mechanical inter- 



* Journ. Anat. Physiol., xxxiv. (1900) pp. 198-222 (3 pis.). 



+ Biol. Centralbl., xx. (1900) pp. 65-71. J Tom. cit.. pp. 34-45. 



§ Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxiv. (1899) pp. 1-29. 



