44 



Menioire sur le Cholera-Morbus coniplique d'une Epidemie de 

 Fievre Jaune, qui a regne simultanement a la Nouvelle-Or- 

 leans en 1832. Par M. Michel Halpheu, Docteur en Medecine. 

 — From the AuUior. 



Astronomische Nachrichten. Nos- 241 to 250. — From Professor 

 Schumacher. 



On the Influence of Colour and Heat on Odours. By James 

 Stark, M. D. — From the Author. 



Beitrage zur Petrefactenkunde. Von Hermann Von Mayer. — 

 From the Author. 



The following communication was read : — 



On the Principle of Vital Attraction and Repulsion, with 

 some applications to Physiology and Pathology. By Dr 

 Alison. 



The object of this paper was, to state and estimate the scientific 

 value of a variety of facts, which have been recorded by various phy- 

 siologists ; and many of which have been verified by personal obser- 

 vation, in proof of the proposition, — That the fluids of living bodies, or 

 in immediate contact with them, are in many instances liable to 

 movements, — dependent on the vitality of those bodies, but inde- 

 pendent of any vital contractions of their solids, — and which can 

 hardly be conceived to be eflfected otherwise than by certain attrac- 

 tions and repulsions, peculiar to the living state. 



Five classes of observations, perfectly distinct from one another, 

 were stated in proof of this general proposition. 



I. The first are those made on the regular progressive movements 

 of juices (made visible by whitish globules) in many kinds of vege- 

 tables^ to which the name of Rotation has been given in the case of the 

 cellular plants, such as the Chara and Caulinia, and that of Cyclase 

 in the case of cellular plants with emitting juices, such as the differ- 

 ent species of Ficus, — movements which go on nearly uniformly, under 

 considerable variations of temperature, and of other external circum- 

 stances, while life continues ; and which are not only unattended 

 with any visible contractions of the parietes of the cells or vessels 

 containing the fluid, but are of such a nature, as no contractions of 

 these parietes appear capable of producing, as appears particularly 

 from the elaborate inquiries of Schultzs, Amici, Nisbet, and Cassini. 

 This conclusion is the more important, as it is probably applicable to 

 nearly all the movements, peculiar to life, in the fluids of vegetables. 



