300 AXNFAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



mer may be traced to unwholesome food. The same authority affirms 

 that, on the average, 33|- per cent, of the cows kept in any large town 

 die annually of disease; and he asks, "If our sanitary reformers are 

 alarmed at a mortality of two hundred persons in ten thousand, what 

 will they say to more than sixteen times that mortality amongst our 

 poor cows ? " 



On the Prevalence and Cause of Goitre. A commission appoint- 

 ed by the French Academy to inquire into and report on the preva- 

 lence and causes of goitre, have ascertained that, when this disease 

 exists among men and women, it also attacks quadrupeds. The 

 thyroid glands of cows, goats, pigs, horses and mules are found to be 

 affected in those districts where goitre is most common. This discovery 

 proves that goitre is not induced by diet alone, for many animals that 

 were found to be affected were living on mountain slopes, apart from 

 the dirty villages in the valleys. 



The Consanguinity Controversy. M. Beaudouin communicates to 

 the French Academy an account of his " breeding in and in " with a 

 flock of three hundred sheep without any apparent ill effect ; but in 

 this, as in similar cases, the alliances between the two sexes were 

 strictly regulated, and all weak and undesirable animals were ex- 

 cluded. In one case, during a period of twenty-two years, a sheep 

 was born in this flock exactly reproducing the primitive type. M. 

 Beaudouin agrees in the main with M. Sanson, a French naturalist, 

 who disputes in toto the proposition that consanguinity tends to cleter- 

 iorate offspring ; but observes that he generalizes too fast when he 

 says that the inconveniences attributed to consanguineous connections 

 have no foundation in observation. "We should add," observes M. 

 Beaudouin, " when such unions take place between selected individ- 

 uals." M. Gourdon, another French naturalist, however, after re- 

 viewing the proceedings of the most celebrated cattle-breeders, con- 

 tends that Durham oxen, New Leicester pigs, Ditchley sheep, and 

 other successful examples, are, however useful to man, monstrosities, 

 constituted in opposition to all the laws of health, and that connec- 

 tions of consanguinity always produce mischief, although it may be 

 convenient to resort to them for special purposes. 



Physiological Effects of Milk. Mothers have long been aware of 

 the fact that their infants were affected by any changes in the com- 

 position of breast-milk, brought about by particular kinds of food, 

 medicine, or other disturbing causes; and a French doctor, M. La- 

 bourdette, takes advantage of this circumstance by administering to 

 the mother the physic he wishes to operate upon the child. M. 

 Fiourens also has made divers experiments with pigs and other ani- 

 mals. He colored the maternal food with madder, and, in twenty 

 days, found the bones of the little sucklings tinged with that dye. At 

 the meeting of the British Association, in 1860, Mr. Gibb, referring 

 to Vogel's discovery of vibrios in human milk, stated that a child had 

 been brought to him in a state of emaciation. The mother appeared 

 in good health, and her milk was rich in cream and sugar, but it 

 contained numerous vibrios. Subsequent observations confirmed the 

 opinion that milk containing infusoria reduced the children who were 

 suckled upon it to skin and bone. 



