PKOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 33 



exercised. Dr. Beale's facts appeared to him very feasible in many 

 points. His reasons for this assertion he would state. Many present 

 were doubtless aware that the capillaries of the larger-sized vessels 

 which formed the rete mirabile of the porpoise were of a very remark- 

 able character. In them we had appearances similar to those described 

 in some of Dr. Beale's diagrams, viz. contractile vessels of moderate 

 calibre, and minute vessels supplying these ; the capillaries sometimes 

 running parallel, sometimes crossing each other at various angles. It 

 was very difficult to comprehend and explain what was the cause of the 

 steady and uniform circulation in these masses of blood-vessels con- 

 sidered in the light of the older ideas on the question. Amongst these 

 capillaries we had also nerves to a certain extent freely intermingled : 

 and when tracing them by ordinary scalpel manipulation, similar rami- 

 fications to what had been demonstrated by Dr. Beale in his minute 

 dissections were apparent, wherefore we might look for some nervous 

 influence as the cause of the blood's propulsion by the contraction 

 of the multitudinous vessels of the rete. The doctrines nowadays 

 were different to those which obtained in former times, in consequence 

 of the closer study which had been bestowed ujion microscopic 

 anatomy. Each organ was found to be a distinct piece of machinery. 

 All present well knew that if the connecting cord of an electrical 

 battery be cut, motion at once ceased at the farther end, and what 

 Dr. Beale had shown reminded him (Dr. Murie) of what obtains 

 and could be readily seen in the body of the torpedo. But before 

 alluding further to the electric organ of that remarkable fish, he 

 would ask Dr. Beale whether, in speaking of the section of the mole's 

 nose, it was a vertical aspect to which he referred? (Dr. Beale 

 explained that he referred to the end of the nose looking down iqjon 

 it.) That fact then convinced him (Dr. Murie) that the same thing 

 as Dr. Beale described occurred in the nerves and electric battery of 

 the torpedo. In the organ in question there were to be seen a series 

 of hexagonal areas or vertical columns, containing jelly-like or pro- 

 toplasmic substance precisely similar to what was shown in one of 

 Dr. Beale's smaller diagrams. These in the fish's battery could be 

 discerned with the naked eye; and moreover, when using the micro- 

 scope, a multitude of delicate nervous twigs was revealed, which 

 ramified between and abutted against the sides of the hexagonal 

 battery cells. Max Schultze and he believed Kolliker among others 

 traced these terminal nerves in the same position as Dr. Beale 

 had shown in the mole's nose. He (Dr. Murie) wished to jjoint out 

 that if there was in the case of the torpedo a vast electrical battery 

 supplied by nervous influence of gigantic power, was it not very 

 probable that the same kind of thing obtained in the arterial capil- 

 laries, modified of course to the limited exigencies of their contractile 

 powers? Having regard to the existence of the mole's nose, he 

 (Dr. Murie) was disposed to agree with Dr. Beale in the demon- 

 stration he had given of the subject in general. The theoretical 

 portion of Dr. Beale's paper was not altogether " plane sailing." He 

 believed, however, that the doctrines enunciated did explain very 

 many things both of a pathological as well as physiological character. 



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