Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, 143 



found the vertebral canal entirely filled with the fluid, which sur- 

 rounded the anterior nerves of the interiors, and equally separated 

 the fibres of the nerves of sensation and of motion. It appeared, he 

 stated, to be more abundant in man than in the other viammifera, 

 — M. Flourens read a memoir on the brain of Fishes. 



January 3, 1825. — M. Poisson was elected Vice-President for 

 1825 ; and M. Chaptal the Vice-President during 1824, entered 

 upon his office as President for this year. — M. M. Dumeril and 

 Latreille presented a report on a memoir on Leeches, by M. M. 

 Huzard aud Pelletier. 



The authors of this memoir had been commissioned to obtain 

 information for the civil authorities, relative to the means to be 

 employed for terminating the complaints often made to them 

 respecting the bad quality of the Leeches used in medicine. The 

 chief points they proposed to examioe were, first, the causes 

 which in certain cases render the little wounds made by these 

 animals difficult to cure ; and secondly, the circumstances under 

 which certain Leeches do not . penetrate the skin to which they 

 are applied. On the first point, M. M. Huzard and Pelletier 

 agree with physicians in acknowledging that the inconveniences 

 ascribed to Leeches, should in most cases be attributed to the 

 temperament of the patient, the nature of the malady, the means 

 employed to detach them from the wound, or the foreign sub- 

 stances used to stop the bleeding and close the wound. With 

 regard to the second point of inquiry, the authors of the memoir 

 have ascertained that species of Leech are oiFered for sale which 

 at first sight entirely resemble medicinal Leeches; but which 

 differ from them in not having the serrated jaws proper for mak- 

 ing the incisions in the skin from which the animal sucks, as 

 well as in the conformation of the stomach and intestinal canal. 

 They cannot be employed in medicine, for they do not bite. 

 M. Dutrochet has already described the species of the Annulosa 

 brought forward as new by M. Huzard and his Colleague, but 

 various errors respecting it which occur in his work they have 

 been enabled to correct, having made it an object of particular 

 examination for the space of a twelvemonth. 



