98 Db. Mitchell on the Occurrence of Sugar in the Animal Economy. 



or excess in some of its ingredients. Accordingly, I have carefully esti- 

 mated the amount of CO^ in the expired air of several diabetes ; I have 

 done the same with the expired air of healthy individuals, after a similar 

 diet, and otherwise under conditions as nearly as possible the same. I 

 have searched in both for the presence of other ingredients. I have endea- 

 voured to examine and state comparatively the condition of the cutaneous 

 respiration in diabetes and in healthy persons. I have inquired if the 

 temperature of diabetics falls below the normal standard. I have 

 examined the blood and urine of persons in whom the respiratory act was 

 incomplete, from a morbid condition of the lungs. I have done the same 

 with individuals who had been long in a state of anasthesia, from the 

 inhalation of chloroform, and in whom the oxygenation of the blood must 

 necessarily have been incomplete. I have compared the blood before enter- 

 ing the lungs with that which had passed through them. I have impeded 

 respiration by division of the pneumogastric nerves, singly, doubly, and in 

 different localities, and have then searched for the result in changes of the 

 blood, urine, &c. I have irritated various portions of the brain, which I 

 thought might affect the same. In short, I have cross examined nature in 

 every way which I thought might extort the truth. The answers I have 

 hitherto received lead me towards certain inferences ; but I do not yet 

 consider the experiments sufficiently multiplied to waiTant the announce- 

 ment of deductions, especially as the subject is one of such high importance. 

 I shall continue to prosecute them ; and I hope on some future occasion 

 I may have the honour of communicating the results to this Society. 



P.S. — Before beginning a series of researches, (having for their end 

 the discovery of the manner in which the sugar, constantly entering the 

 circulation, is removed therefrom,) I deemed it right to establish the 

 accuracy of the conclusions arrived at by other experimenters on allied 

 subjects, and which required to be received as true at the outset of my 

 investigations. 



The first part of the foregoing paper contains the residts of a train of 

 experiments instituted with this object. 



Free reference has been made to the works of the following observers : 

 Bernard, Barreswill, Mialhe, Magendie, Liebig, Persoz, Miiller, &c. &c. 



March Gth, 1850. — 7%e President in the Chair. 



It was agreed, on the motion of Mr. LiddcU, that a deputation should 

 be sent from the Society to the meeting of the British Association to be 

 held in Edinburgh in August. 



Dr. Allen Thomson gave an account of recent observation respecting 

 the germination of the Ferns. 



The following paper was read on the parallel roads of Glen Iloy. 



