294 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



The grounds on which Dr. Budd founds these views are: 1 

 The pathology of consumption, wiiicli he thinks shows a specific 

 cell proliferation. 2. Indisputable instances of personal conta- 

 gion. 3. The geographical distribution of consumption, the dis- 

 ease extending to newly discovered peoples in proportion to their 

 intercourse with Europeans (for instance, the South Sea Islanders, 

 the North American Indians, and the African, among whom con- 

 sumption was unknown when they were first visited by the whites, 

 though it has since proved extremely fatal). 4. The relation of 

 consumption to high and low levels is the same as that of ordinary 

 zymotic, epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases. 5. Con- 

 sumption prevails extensively in convents, harems, monasteries, 

 penitentiaries, just as do the zymotic diseases. Dr. Budd says 

 that the idea first occurred to him in 1854, and his investigations 

 since have confirmed him in this hypothesis, for which he claims 

 the superiority over all others, that it explains all the facts of con- 

 sumption. 



According to Dr. Crisp, in a paper read before the British As- 

 sociation, in 1868, " On the Statistics of Pulmonary Consumption, 

 in England and Wales," it appears to follow the march of civiliza- 

 tion, and its prevalence has a direct connection with population, 

 and the artificial habits and the vitiated atmosphere in which they 

 live. The returns show that the death-rate corresponds with the 

 density of the population ; that the general mortality in England 

 and Wales is at the rate of 24.47 per thousand ; that in the healthy 

 and more thinly populated districts the rate is only 17.53 per 

 thousand; while in the large towns it is 28.01. Among sailors, 

 the most fatal stations as regards phthisis were the western coast 

 of Africa, and the Mediterranean. A dry atmosphere, cold or 

 hot, was most frequent in districts where phthisis was compara- 

 tively rare. The causes of phthisis included soil, climate, amount 

 of population, nature of occupation, hereditary predisposition, 

 and the communicability of the disease. There was no doubt 

 that one frequent cause of phthisis was the exposed state of our 

 railway stations and steamboat piers, which people would hurry 

 to reach in order to save a boat or train, and where, having be- 

 come heated, they were in cold weather liable to a sudden chill. 



For further information on the causes, prevention, and rational 

 treatment of this disease, see two papers by Dr. Bowditch in the 

 *• Atlantic Monthly" for January and February, 1869. 



According to experiments of Dr. Delafield, as stated to the New 

 York Pathological Society, tubercle may be propagated by inocu- 

 lation from man to animals. 



INFLUENCE OF ANESTHETICS ON BRAIN AND NERVOUS 



SYSTEM. 



The obvious fact that the motion of the heart and the move- 

 ments of respiration continue in action while the rest or the body 

 is under the narcotic effect, during ansBsthesia, prove that the 

 whole nervous system is not involved, and that the involuntary 



