Dec. 29. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



515 



idea from 'a similar system, instituted about the 

 close of the fourteenth century, in Spain, by the 

 celebrated Cardinal Ximenes, then Bishop of 

 Toledo. Whether this be the case or not, as any 

 previous registrations, such as they were, had been 

 kept by the monks in the religious houses, on 

 their suppression, the establishment of a new 

 system became evidently necessary. 



During the ecclesiastical troubles of the reign 

 of Mary, and the earlier part of that of Elizabeth, 

 the system of registration instituted by Cromwell 

 fell into disuse ; and many of the registers were 

 either lost, or wilfully destroyed, for certain mo- 

 tives which need not be entered upon here. _ To 

 remedy this evil, by an act or injunction of Eliza- 

 beth in 1597, it was decreed that parish registers 

 should be more carefully kept for the future ; and 

 that such of the old registers as were then in 

 existence, should be carefully transcribed by the 

 clergyman of the parish. Moreover, to ensure 

 the accuracy of these transcriptions, and give 

 them a legal authority, the transcribing clergy- 

 man should verify each page of the transcription 

 with his signature. A few of these transcribed 

 registers, verified by the transcribing clergymen's 

 signatures, are, or were till lately, in existence ; 

 and thus it happened that persons, unaware of the 

 injunction of Elizabeth, were surprised by the 

 great apparent longevity of the transcribing in- 

 cumbents. But instead of philosophically inquir- 

 ing into the matter, they, taking the longevity for 

 granted, taxed their ingenuity to account for it. 

 For, besides the incumbent of Keame, who was 

 thus erroneously supposed to have held his office 

 for ninety-two years, there was another in Here- 

 fordshire — the name and parish I forget — whose 

 incumbency seemed to have lasted eighty-two 

 years ; and others who, for the same reason, were 

 supposed to have officiated for not quite so long, 

 but nearly as extraordinary periods. 



Let us take the case of Mr. Sampson, for in- 

 stance, and allow, as the misled recorders of his 

 great age do, that he was twenty-two years old 

 when appointed to the incumbency ; and sup- 

 posing that he was appointed in 1597, when the 

 injunction was put in force ; then, as he died in 

 1655, he would have held the incumbency for 

 fifty-eight years, and died at the age of eighty. 



W. PiNKEBTON. 



Hammersmith. 



CANNON-BALL EFFECTS. 



(Vol. X., p. 386. ; Vol. xi., p. 56.) 



In turning over the Clinigue Chirurgicale of 

 the Baron Larrey (8vo., Paris, 1829), I lighted 

 upon a passage in which that distinguished man 

 expresses his opinion as to these so-called wind- 

 contusions ; and which, perhaps, Mr. David 



No. 322.] 



Forsyth may be glad to have brought before 

 him, in the absence of the original scientific in- 

 formation which was the object of his Query 

 to educe. Speaking of projectiles, and their 

 various eflfects upon the human body, the Baron 

 remarks : 



*' Lorsqu'ils sont pouss^s avec force et qu'ils frappent 

 nos parties dans leur premiere direction, trfes-prfes du 

 point de leur depart, ils les perforent, les rompent, et les 

 emportent en totalite ou en partie. S'ils sont au contraire 

 h, la fin de leur course, ils roulent sur leur surface orbe, 

 dans une grande partie de leur circonf^rence, sans alt^rer 

 les enveloppes t^gumenteuses ou membraneuses trJis- 

 elastiques qui cedent h. leur impulsion, tandis que les par- 

 ties subjacentes, denses et fragiles, se rompent, se de- 

 chirent, ou se fracturent. C'est k ces accidens que I'on 

 doit rapporter la cause des morts inopin^es qu'on a at- 

 tribuees pendant longtemps h. I'impression de I'air sur 

 les parties sensibles, deplace ou agit^ avec force par le 

 boulet. 11 suffit de lire le memoire de Levacher, ins^rd 

 parmi ceux de I'ancienne academic roj-ale de chirurgie, 

 pour etre convaincu de cette erreur, sans avoir besoia 

 d'en appeler h I'experience dont les resultats sont d'ailleurs 

 trfes-connus." — Tom. i. p. 34. 



A similar opinion is expressed by another emi- 

 nent army-surgeon, the late Samuel Cooper : he 

 says : 



" A cannon-ball, especially when nearly spent, fre- 

 quently strikes the surface of the body or a limb ob- 

 liquely, and is reflected without breaking the skin. A 

 soldier may be killed in this way, without any appear- 

 ance of external violence. His comrades suppose, there- 

 fore, that he has been killed by the luind of a ball ! But 

 the error of this opinion is immediately manifest, when it 

 is remembered that cannon-balls often carry away a part 

 of the dress, without doing any harm to the person." — 

 Elements of Surgery, p. 125. 



The opinion of the writer just cited, and that of 

 Mr. Druitt, author of an esteemed Manual of 

 Surgery, have concurred in justifying Mr. J. B. 

 Harrison to give the belief in the effects of the 

 "wind of a ball" a place in his amusing little 

 book on Popular Medical Errors, London, 12mo., 

 1851. 



On the other hand, when we read of the awful, 

 and, I believe, undoubted effects, produced by the 

 wind of an avalanche, it does not seera altogether 

 absurd to believe that a mass, moving with great 

 velocity, although much smaller, should also pro- 

 duce a palpable effect of the same kind ; though 

 differing, of course, in degree. I transcribe the 

 following passage, in illustration, from Murray's 

 Handbook for Switzerland, Sfc. : 



" One of the most remarkable phenomena attending 

 the avalanche is the blast of air which accompanies it ; 

 and which, like what is called the wind of a cannon-ball, 

 extends its destructive influence to a considerable dis- 

 tance on each side of the actual line taken by the falling 

 mass. It has all the eftects of a blast of gunpowder: 

 sometimes forest trees, growing near the sides of the 

 channel down which the snow passes, are uprooted and 

 laid prostrate, without having been touched by it. In 

 this wa3', the village of Randa, in the Visp-Thal, lost 

 many of its houses by the current of an avalanche which 



