548 Meeting of the British Association. [ Oct., 
not acting. They would not come forward and teach, and they 
alone could teach as was necessary ; hence the slow progress which 
the movement made. Professor Huxley felt sure that if all men 
should be as earnest as Mr. Farrar they had nothing to fear. The 
important question for England just now was not as to her supply 
of coal, but the necessity of education in the great truths of 
science. 
In the department of Physiology, Dr. Humphry delivered an 
address opposing the law of Continuity in Life, and Darwinism. 
Dr. Humphry believes in heterogenesis, subject to certain laws. 
Dr. John Davy, in a short paper, advanced the view that the 
carbonate of lime in the egg-shell of birds exists in an amorphous 
condition. Mr. C. Stewart maintained that the minute aggrega- 
tions composing the shell had a clearly radiated crystalline structure. 
A letter was read from Dr. Acland, announcing the refusal of the 
Medical Council to apply a sum of money to the investigation of 
the physiological action of medicines, and a paper on this subject 
was read by Dr. Sharp. Dr. B. W. Richardson reported on the 
action of Amyl, and exhibited his method of producing local 
aneesthesia by ether vapours on the person of the President of the 
Association, into whose arm he stuck needles, &c., without any pain 
being occasioned. He also read an essay on the Comparative 
Vitality of Jews and Christians, in which, after adducmg a large 
number of statistics, he offered the conclusion that the great vitality 
of the Jews is owing to their temperance, faithfulness, cleanliness, 
and prudence,—not to any traditionary hygienic law or race- 
characters. 
Dr. Spencer Cobbold read papers on the Cattle Plague, Entozoa, 
and on experiments with Entozoa. 
Dr. Gibson made some observations on the movements, struc- 
ture, and sounds of the Heart; and Dr. Norris read a very long 
essay on Muscular Irritability and the Relations which exist between 
Muscle, Nerve, and Blood. 
One of the most original and satisfactory papers in this depart- 
ment was by Dr. Arthur Gamgee, “On the Action of Carbonic 
Oxide on Blood.” Dr. Gamgee had followed up Professor Stokes’ 
observations on the spectra of arterial and venous blood. He had 
found in experimenting with carbonic oxide, that it forms with the 
colourmg matter of the blood a stable compound, haying much 
resemblance to the dark form of cruorine in its absorption bands, 
but differing from that body in its stability. The heemato-globuline 
of blood, when thus combined with carbonic oxide, did not coagu- 
late; hence it was that persons poisoned by charcoal fumes are 
found to have the blood in a non-coagulable condition. Acetic 
