TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 85 



vegetable chemistry, and the announcement of the discovery of a new alkaloid de- 

 rived from a new species of Pereira, the Cryptocaria pretiosa, different from the bark 

 of the true Pereira, examined by M. Pelletier. 



On the Comparative Frequency of Uterine Conception. 

 By Dr. S. W. J. Merriman. 



On the Tape-Worm as inevalent in Abyssinia. By Dr. Hodgkin. 

 In addition to observations on this subject, he also gave some particulars of the 

 plant called Kosso in Abyssinia, but known by different names in other regions ot 

 Africa, the flowers of which are powerfully purgative, and are used as a specific re- 

 medy for the endemic prevalence of worms. 



Dr. Williams presented two specimens of Taenia, one of which had been removed 

 by the use of spirit of turpentine, after the male fern root {Aspidium filix mas) had 

 failed, and the other by the latter remedy, after the turpentine had failed. 



On the Reflex Function of the Brain. By Dr. Laycock. 

 The object was to show that the reflex function, as possessed by the spinal nerves 

 and ganglia, is also manifested by the cerebral ganglia, and the cerebral nerves of 

 sensation, the optic, acoustic, olfactory, &c. ; that, in fact, as the cerebral masses and 

 the cerebral nerves are properly to be considered as a continuation of the spinal, they 

 are furnished with the same endowments and subject to the same laws. He reviewed 

 the doctrine of the reflex function, and the facts on which it was founded, as taught 

 by Dr. Marshall Hall. The excito-motory irritation may be applied either to the 

 periphery or to the central axis in the spinal system, and may produce its effect inde- 

 pendently of sensation or perception or volition. Yet consciousness and perception 

 may, in some cases, be superadded to the organic effects of the irritation ; examples 

 of both those peculiarities of nervous action were alluded to ; and Dr. Laycock con- 

 tended, that if similar phffinomena arose from mere cerebral excitement, they must be 

 considered as reflex excited acts, accompanied by sensation and consciousness, these 

 central cerebral irritations producing a series of changes, commencing m the posterior 

 gray matter, and exciting what Dr. Laycock terms ideagenous changes ; from thence 

 the series of changes extends to the anterior gray matter, and kinetic changes («m'«, 

 moveo) result, whence the harmonious muscular movements are produced. The 

 points insisted on by the author were, that the cerebral nerves are incident excifor, 

 and the brain an excitor of movements in all respects analogous to the reflex ; the 

 proof of this he thinks must be sought in pathological observations, as those nerves 

 are not irritable by the ordinary stimuli of heat, mechanical violence, &c., as are the 

 nerves of the spinal axis. The phaenomena of hydrophobia and chorea, he contended, 

 furnished those proofs : in the former, the sound, or sight, or mere idea of water ex- 

 cited the convulsive paroxysm, and certain odours are known to excite convulsions. 

 To show that the brain is the excitor of reflex acts, he referred to the case of chorea 

 in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, and analysed its phaenomena, which were 

 complicated with spasmodic muscular movements of the face, trunk and extremities, 

 and neuralgia of the fifth pair of nerves. Cases of lingual chorea, and partial loss of 

 memory from disease of the brain, confirmed this view of central excito-motory 

 power ; examples were adduced. The reason why mechanical violence to the central 

 ganglia did not exhibit these phaenomena (as in the experiments of Flourens) was, 

 because such an irritation was foreign from the true exciting influence of this part of 

 the nervous system. The phsenomena of hemiplegia were adduced as proofs of the 

 author's position ; and the instinctive actions of animals were represented as true re- 

 flex acts, induced by irritable stimuli received through the cerebral nerves. 



Dr. Bacchetti communicated the particulars of a case of extra uterine pregnancy. 



Dr. Fowler communicated some additional facts relative to the case of the blind 

 and deaf mute, which he detailed at former meetings of the Association, She had 



