52 Royal Society. 



son, Esq., F.L.S., Surgeon, Great Malvern. Communicated by 

 R. B. Todd, M.D., F.R.S. 



After reciting the various opinions which have prevailed among 

 anatomists regarding the manner in which the bronchial tubes ter- 

 minate, whether, as some suppose, by cells having free communica- 

 tion with one another, or, as others maintain, by distinct and sepa- 

 rate cells having no such intercommunication, the author states that 

 having been engaged in investigating, with the aid of the micro- 

 scope, the seat and nature of pulmonary tubercles, he could never 

 discover, in the course of his inquiry, any tubes ending in a cul-de- 

 sac ; but, on the contrary, always saw, in every section that he made, 

 air-cells communicating with each other. He concludes from his 

 experiments and observations, that the bronchial tubes, after dividing 

 dichotomously into a multitude of minute branches, which pursue 

 their course in the cellular interstices of the lobules, terminate, in 

 their interior, in branched air-passages, and in air-cells which freely 

 communicate with one another, and have a closed termination at the 

 boundary of the lobule. The apertures by which these air-cells open 

 into one another are termed by the author lobular passages : but he 

 states that the air-cells have not an indiscriminate or general inter- 

 communication throughout the interior of a lobule, and that no ana- 

 stomoses occur between the interlobular ramifications of the bron- 

 chiae themselves ; each branch pursuing its own independent course 

 to its termination in a closed extremity. Several drawings of the 

 microscopical appearances of injected portions of the lungs accom- 

 pany this paper. 



April 14. — A paper was read, entitled, " Remarks on the probable 

 natural causes of the Epidemic Influenza as experienced at Hull in 

 the year 1833 ; with a delineation of the Curves of the maximum, 

 the mean, and the minimum Temperatures in the shade, and the 

 maximum Temperature in the sun's rays at Hull, during the years 

 1823 and 1833." By G. H. Fielding, M.D. Communicated by the 

 Rev. Wm. Buckland^ D.D., F.R.S. 



The meteorological causes to which the author ascribes the sudden 

 accession of the influenza at Hull, and its continuance from the 26th 

 of April to the 28th of May 1833, are, first, the unusually cold 

 weather during March, and also the cold and wet which prevailed 

 during April in the same year : secondly, the sudden rise of tem- 

 perature, amounting to 21 of Fahr., which occurred in a few hours 

 on the 26th of April : and thirdly, the continuance, through May, 

 of extreme vicissitudes of temperature between the day and the 

 night ; the burning heat of the days and the cold thick fogs, with 

 easterly winds, commencing generally about sunset, and prevailing 

 during the night. 



A paper was also read, entitled, " Report of a remarkable appear- 

 ance of the Aurora Borealis below the Clouds." By the Rev. James 

 Farquharson, LL.D., F.R.S., Minister of Alford. 



The phenomenon recorded in this paper occurred on the night of 

 the 24th of February 1842, when a remarkable aurora borealis was 

 seen by the author apparently situated between himself and lofty 



