TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 125 



The author maintains that in various diseases, and more especially in 

 severe neuralgic complaints, characterised by acute paroxysms of suf- 

 fering of a periodic character, the efficacy of this method of employing 

 mercury is found strikingly beneficial. 



Two cases of this description of disease were adduced by the author 

 in proof of the correctness of his views. 



On the Functions of the Rete Mucosum and Pigmentum Nigrum, in the 

 Dark Races of Mankind. By R. M. Glover. 



The paper of Sir Everard Home, published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1821, is the first attempt to investigate the subject ex- 

 perimentally. This author attributed the power of resisting the solar 

 heat, manifested by the dark races, to a property possessed by dark 

 surfaces of destroying the scorching and blistering effects of the solar 

 rays on the skin. Thus, according to him, were a black and a white 

 skin exposed to the same degi'ee of solar heat, the former should rise 

 to the higher temperature, yet inflame the least. 



Mr. Glover endeavoured to prove, that the experiments of Sir Eve- 

 rard Home are incon-ect ; and that a black surface does not only rise to 

 a higher temperature than a M'hite one under the sun's rays, but also 

 scorches and blisters the skin in a greater degree. He further attempts 

 to show experimentally that the scorching and blistering effects of white 

 and black surfaces are precisely in the ratio of their poM'ers of absorb- 

 ing heat, a conclusion which is entirely opposed to the opinion of Sir 

 Everard Home, who supposed that the rays of luminous caloric can 

 blister the skin in a degree greater than what is accounted for by the 

 quantity of heat contained in them. 



But although the skin of the black may absorb more heat than the 

 skin of the white man, and although we are unable to explain the su- 

 perior tolerance of heat by the possessor of the former in the mode 

 adopted by Sir Everard Home, yet it is established that the organiza- 

 tion of the inhabitant of the tropic, and especially of the negro, is pe- 

 culiarly fitted to enable him to perspire freely on the ajaplication to him 

 of the stimulus of heat ; while in the adaptation of his system to respond 

 to this stimulus, and in the cooling effects of perspiration, which are 

 shown by many experiments, must be sought the mode in which he is 

 protected from the heat. 



The dai'k-coloured skin, the author is also of opinion, must radiate 

 at night very freely ; this agrees with the well-known fact that negroes 

 are exceedingly chilly in the nights of the tropics. 



Remarks on the Skull of Eugene Aram. By Dr. Inglis. 



In this communication the author endeavoured first to substantiate 

 the fact that the skull produced was really taken from tlie body of Eu- 



