Royal Society. 41 



and spinal marrow, and of bestowing it on the muscles of involuntary 

 motion, these muscles being subservient to those functions of life 

 which require that combined influence j that the manner in which 

 the influence of these organs affects the muscular fibre is not essen- 

 tially different from that of other stimulants and sedatives ; and that 

 this influence is not an agent peculiar to the nervous system, but is 

 capable of existing elsewhere, and is consequently not a vital power, 

 properly so called ; a conclusion which appears to him to be confirm- 

 ed from the circumstance that galvanism is capable of performing all 

 its functions. Hence he infers that the brain and spinal marrow, far 

 from bestowing on the muscular fibre its peculiar power, only supplies 

 an inanimate agent, which, like all other such agents, capable of 

 affecting it, acts on it either as a stimulant or sedative, according to 

 the degree in which it is applied, and is identical with the galvanic 

 influence. 



Feb. 14. — A paper was read, entitled, " On the Existence of four 

 distinct Hearts, having regular Pulsations, connected with the Lym- 

 phatic System, in certain Amphibious Animals." By John Muller, 

 M.D., Professor of Physiology in the University of Bonn. Commu- 

 nicated by Leonard Horner, Esq., F.R.S. 



The author had long ago observed, that, in frogs, there exists, im- 

 mediately under the skin, large spaces containing lymph, whence it 

 can be readily collected by making incisions through the skin. These 

 receptacles for lymph are larger in the frog than in the other amphi- 

 bia : but all the animals of this class appear, from the observations of 

 the author, to be also provided with remarkable pulsating organs, 

 which propel the lymph in the lymphatic vessels, in the same way as 

 the heart propels the blood circulating in the arterial system. In the 

 frog, two of these lymphatic hearts are situated behind the joint of 

 the hip, and immediately underneath the skin. Their contractions 

 are performed with regularity, and may be seen through the skin j 

 but they are not synchronous either with the motions of the heart, or 

 with those of the lungs, and they continue after the removal of the 

 heart, and even after the dismemberment of the animal. The pulsa- 

 tions of these two organs on the right and left side are not performed 

 at the same time, but often alternate at irregular intervals. 



The author proceeds to trace the connexions of these cavities with 

 the lymphatic vessels in the neighbourhood, and with one another: 

 and it appears from his researches, that the lymph of the hinder ex- 

 tremities, as well as that of the posterior part of the abdomen, is con- 

 veyed by means of these hearts into the trunk of the crural veins. 

 He also gives a description of the posterior part of the venous system 

 of the frog, noticing particularly the large transverse anastomosis be- 

 tween the sciatic and the crural veins, which joins the anterior median 

 vein of the abdomen, and conducts the blood partly into the vena 

 portae, and partly into the renal veins. 



Professor Muller has likewise discovered two anterior lymphatic 

 hearts in the frog ; a discovery to which he was led by some obser- 

 vations of Dr. Marshall Hall, who stated that he had seen in that 

 animal an artery pulsate after the removal of the heart. These ante- 



Third Series. Vol. 3. No. 13. July 1833. G 



