510 British Association for the Advancement of Science, 



Dr. Corrigan has in some experiments substituted a gum-elastic 

 tube for the portion of gut. 



Dr. Alison read a notice of a few experiments and observations 

 which he had made, with the assistance of different friends, on two 

 distinct subjects : 1. On the Condition and the vital Powers in Ar- 

 teries leading to inflamed parts, (in continuation of those on the same 

 subject read to the Section in 1834) ; and 2. On the immediate Cause 

 of Death in Asphyxia. 



He connected them with one another by some preliminary obser- 

 vations on the importance of establishing the truth, and, as far as 

 posssible, determining the applications of the principle to which the 

 term spontaneity of movement in the fluids of living bodies has been 

 applied, i. e, of movements of the fluids in living bodies, which are 

 dependent on their living state, but independent of any contraction 

 of their living solids. 



In proof of the truth of this principle he stated that many facts 

 might be adduced ; and the immediate object of the statements now 

 made was to prove that without reference to this principle it is im- 

 possible to explain two sets of phenomena, which have been care- 

 fully observed, and are of essential importance, — the changes in the 

 motion of the blood which attend inflammation, and those which result 

 from the application of oxygen to the blood in respiration. 



On the first point, he detailed the result of two examinations (in 

 addition to those formerly reported) of the arteries of limbs of 

 horses killed on account of injury and inflammation of single joints, 

 in one case of three weeks', in the other of eight days' standing, The 

 power of contracting on a distending force, and expelling their con- 

 tents, was tried in the arteries both of the inflamed and the sound 

 limbs, by the same contrivance as was used by Porseuille to compare 

 the contractile power of living and dead arteries ; i. e. by using bent 

 tubes and stopcocks in such a way as to distend a given portion of 

 artery (first of the one limb and then of the other,) by water pressed 

 into it by a firm weight of mercury, and then allowing the artery to 

 expel the distending water, and getting a measure of the force which 

 it exerts in doing so, by the rise of the level of water in a tube com- 

 municating with the artery. The result was in both cases in ac- 

 cordance with the observations formerly made, that the artery of the 

 inflamed limb exerted less power of contracting on, and expelling its 

 contents, than that of the sound limb. The difference was as 10 to 

 16 in one case, and as 125 to 175 in the other, which was the more 

 satisfactory of the two, as the experiment was made more imme- 

 ately after death. 



It appeared also, on careful comparative examination, that the 

 contraction of the emptied arteries at the moment of death (which 

 is the measure adopted by Parry of the vital power of arteries) was 

 less in the diseased than in the sound limbs ; the difference between 

 the contracted state immediately after death, and the subsequently 

 dilated and dead state of the artery (28 hours after death), being Jth 

 in the case of the diseased limb, and -J rd in that of the sound limb. 



