82 REPORT — 1842. 



more satisfactory than it has been hitherto, by remembering that, by the operation of 

 this law, the return to health, as well as various functional changes, may be altogether 

 independent of any remedies whatever. In short, the author insists that the know- 

 ledge and observation of this law is necessary to carry on all pathological inquiries 

 with scientific accuracy. 



A further investigation of the law is recommended to naturalists, meteorologists, 

 veterinary surgeons, and medical practitioners. Upon the naturalist is impressed the 

 importance of accurately noting all vital changes or habits in animals which occupy a 

 limited portion of time. The vast field presented to the entomologist is mentioned. 

 The period also of moulting, in all animals, is instanced as worthy of notice, and so 

 also the time occupied by birds in pairing, nest-building, and egg-laying, as well as in 

 incubation. All observations, the author suggests, should be made with reference to 

 known meteorological phaenomena, so that the relations of the law may be ascertained 

 and its regulating cause detected. This, it is supposed, will be finally found in the 

 moon's motions round the earth, or in the combined movements of the earth and 

 moon. The time of the day at which periodic phenomena occur is in evident relation 

 with the diurnal variations of the barometer and of the electric tension of the at- 

 mosphere, as well as with the diurnal deviations of the magnetic needle. For example, 

 it is stated that the barometer is at its minimum variation when the fits of quotidian 

 and quartan agues begin, and at its maximum when they end. The silk-worm moth, 

 and the hawk-moth of the evening primrose, constantly break forth from the pupa 

 about the hour when the magnetic needle is at its minimum variation east, while the 

 hawk-moth of the lime appears when the needle is at its maximum variation west, 

 and the death's-head moth at the hour of minimum variation east. The paroxysms 

 of agues exhibit similar relations to the earth's magnetic state. 



The author remarks, that it is of much less importance to observe the moon's 

 changes in connexion with periodic vital phaenomena than to observe her apogee and 

 perigee, her equinoxes and solstices; in short, rather her relations to our planet than 

 to the sun. In accordance with these views, the author suggests the division of the 

 year into lunar seasons, of which he thinks there are six; or at least that the solar 

 seasons be more accurately defined, and according to meteorological phaenomena. 

 Of these, the intermediate point should be at the equinoxes and solstices, so that mid- 

 autumn would be about the 21st of September, mid-spring about the 21st of March, 

 &c. The author concludes his paper by remarking, that it is only widely-extended 

 and accurate observations of this kind which can form the foundation of a science of 

 vital proleptics ; a science the most important of all, as having for its object the pre- 

 vention or amelioration of social and individual suffering, by foretelling its occurrence 

 and foreseeing its causes. 



%* This communication is published at length in the first volume of " The Lancet" 

 for 1842-3, pp. 124, 160. At p. 423 of the same volume is a second communication 

 from Dr. Laycock, in which his views are further developed. 



On the Period of Puberty in Negro Women. By John Roberton, 

 Manchester. 



The object of this paper is to prove, from a large body of well-ascertained facts ob- 

 tained from three of the Moravian Mission stations in the West Indies, that there is 

 no truth whatever in the common notion that the period of puberty is earlier in black 

 than in white women ; in a word, that the notion in question is no better than a vul- 

 gar error. 



The data concerning the period of puberty in negro women in the West Indies are 

 furnished by three independent witnesses ; two of them superintendents of Moravian 

 stations in Jamaica, and the third a medical gentleman long resident in the Island of 

 Antigua, employed by the Moravian superintendent in that island to conduct the in- 

 quiry. The result is a body of facts of an unexceptionable kind, consisting of tables 

 of the ages of a number of negresses, with the age when puberty occurred. As a 

 whole, the evidence goes to prove that negro females reach this period of life neither 

 earlier nor later than the women of Europe. 



N.B. The paper, in its entire form, will be found in the ' Edinburgh Medical and 

 Surgical Journal ' for July 1842. 



