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sponges — they were, he thought, rather to be considered as allies to the 

 corals, than as Mr. Kent seemed to regard them as allies to the infusoria. 



Dr. Cobbold said he was himself inclined rather to take Mr. Kent's view. 

 As regarded the animality of sponges, it had been stated that this was a 

 question of rather recent date, but as a matter of fact the discovery- 

 dated just 33 years ago, the real discoverer being Dr. Dobery, of 

 Chester, who first found the cilia in Grantia. As the manuals in general 

 which dealt with the sponges were in error as to the discoverer, and aa 

 Dr. Bowerbank himself admitted it, he thought that in the interest of 

 an honest worker the facts of the matter should be mentioned. 



The thanks of the meeting were voted to Mr. Priest for his paper. 



A paper by Dr. Manson, of Amoy, " On the Periodicity of Filarial migra- 

 tions to and from the System," was read by Dr. Cobbold. The paper was 

 illustrated by a large diagram, on which were tabulated the results of a 

 series of observations made every three hours during an entire month upon 

 a given quantity of blood from two Chinese youths afflicted by these 

 parasites — the observations recording the number of Filarioi found, the tern- 

 perature of the blood, height of barometer, &c. 



Dr. Stephen Mackenzie referred to the case of a patient under his care who 

 was suffering from the disease. In that case he had been unable to find 

 any of the Filarics in the blood, although when his attention was directed 

 to it he examined it by night as well as by day. and Dr. Cobbold had given 

 him specimens so that he might better recognise them if he found any. 

 He thought that the facts mentioned in the paper were exceedingly impor- 

 tant, and that it was highly desirable that the periodicity should be made 

 known. The chart exhibited in illustration of the paper was a most strik- 

 ing confirmation of previous observations, and the regularity was in itself 

 marvellous. Indeed it seemed little short of fabulous how the Filarice 

 should swarm into the blood just at the time when the mosquitos fed. An 

 important point was whether the Filarice had the same periodicity in tem- 

 perate climates as in the Tropics. As to the way in which the observations 

 were made, they must, of course, rely upon the testimony of Dr. Manson 

 in the matter, but it occurred to him that the Chinese were very clever, 

 and if Filarice were wanted at particular times they might perhaps have 

 little trouble in finding them, and perhaps it was a little natural to suppose 

 that anyone who was particularly interested should see exactly what he was 

 looking for. He was glad to have the opportunity of expressing his sense 

 of the value of what Dr. Cobbold had done in this direction. If anyone 

 found a new form of parasite in any part of the world, it was sure to be 

 sent to Dr. Cobbold, who examined it and gave the benefit of his knowledge 

 upon the subject. In the instance before them he was quite sure that had 

 the diagram been Dr. Cobbold's own he could not have done it greater 

 justice. He should, however, like to know what sort of control was exercised 

 over these two young men. It also occurred to him that the Chinese did 

 not as a rule drink cold water ; it was certainly not their custom in some 

 parts. 



Mr. J. W. Groves asked if the statement that the Filarice passed from 



