BIOLOGY. 303 



exclude the air from wounds, but applies as a dressino: a ma- 

 terial capable of destro3'ing the life of the floating particles. He 

 employs carbolic or phenic acid, the most powerful antiseptic 

 known. He uses "carbolic oil,'' 1 part of carbolic acid to 5 of 

 boiled linseed or other fixed oil ; " carbolic lotion," carbolic acid 1 

 part and water 30 parts; and "carbolic paste," or carbolic oil 

 with whitening, of the consistence of a thick paste. By the de- 

 struction of the septic germs by these preparations, the gravest 

 wounds are recovered from with slight and healthy suppuration, 

 and very little constitutional disturbance. — Lancet. 



NEW THEORY OF VISION. 



Mr. S. Rowley, in the "American Journal of Science" for Sep- 

 tember, 1868, proposes a new theory of vision, of which the fol- 

 lovvincr is a condensed statement: "The entire impressions on 

 the retinae, before becoming objects of consciousness, are pro- 

 jected in space upon surfaces bisecting each other (at an angle 

 greater or less according to the distance) in aphine perpendicular 

 to the plane of the axes, — the component points of each impres- 

 sion being simultaneously referred outward in lines passing from 

 them through a point a little behind the centre of the crystalline 

 lens; but, excepting the expansion and the inversion resulting 

 from the crossing in the eye of the directions of outward reference, 

 undergoing no change of relative position, — the distance between 

 the planes passing at right angles to the optic axis through any 

 two of the successive concentric zones of points, which make up 

 the retinal impression, continuing the same." 



HOMOLOGIES OF SOME OF THE APPENDAGES OF THE ANTERIOR 



VERTEBRA OF FISHES. 



M. E. Baudelot, " Comptes Rendus," February, 1868, under- 

 takes to determine the nature of the ossicles which in the Cyprini- 

 dce, Siluridce, and some other fishes, establish a communication 

 between the anterior extremity of the swimming bladder and the 

 auditory apparatus. Weber long ago considered them as homol- 

 ogous with the bones of the ear of mammals, and gave them, in 

 consequence, the names of malleus, incuSy stapes, and claustrum. 

 GeofFroy St. Hilaire, who considered the opercular pieces as the 

 bones of the auditory apparatus, regarded the bones in question 

 as parts of the superior arches of the first, second, and third ver- 

 tebrae. According to Cuvier, he is also said to have made out the 

 malleus and the incus as the ribs of the second and first vertebrae. 

 Mulder, in 1831, concluded that these bones corresponded to the 

 ear-bones of the higher animals, and that the air-bladder was ho- 

 mologous with the membrane of the tympanum. He afterward 

 attempted to show that the so-called malleus and incus are ribs of 

 the first two vertebrae, and the stapes a transverse process of the 

 first vertebra. 



