Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 199 



excellent health; but from the 17th November to the period of 

 delivery (during the next five months) she did not cease to ex- 

 perience in the lower abdomen, and in the whole pelvie re- 

 gion, pains more or less acute, which she attributed to the 

 brutality of which she was the victim. It was also a kick 

 on the lower belly that had produced the organic deviations 

 of the second species of thlipsencephalus observed by M. 

 Geoffroy ; but this species, as well as the first, presented 

 smaller dimensions, the individuals to which they belong, ha- 

 ving been only sixteen inches in length. On examining with 

 more attention, and with the aid of dissection, the new thlipsen- 

 cephalus which was submitted to him, he found that it differed 

 from the first two by characters so important, that he was led 

 to consider it as a new genus, to which he gives the name of 

 Nosocephalus. Like the thlipsencephalus, it is the natural and 

 almost necessary result of a violence exerted upon the organ 

 which contains the product of conception, only at a more ad- 

 vanced period than that at which the deviation would lead to 

 the production of a thlipsencephalus. The author concluded 

 with some considerations respecting the theory of monsters. 

 Recurring to the observation which formed the subject of his 

 memoir, he remarked, that the manner it which it was possible 

 to guess, from the inspection of a monstrous production, the 

 cause to which the monstrosity should be referred, and the dif- 

 ferences of deviation observed in the nosocephalus, which accord 

 so well with the more advanced period at which the perturbing 

 accident took place, leave no doubt respecting the theory of the 

 formation of these kinds of monsters ; so that at least in well de- 

 fined cases, science possesses facts which may be considered as 

 attaching themselves to principles sufficiently demonstrated to be 

 capable of being applied to use in the practice of medicine. The 

 theory is so perfect in this respect, that, on the inspection of 

 certain monstrosities, it is possible to assign the month, the 

 week, and almost the day, on which the perturbing accident has 

 interrupted the regular order. 



BOTANY. 



1 'i. On the caharemis crystals which occur in the tissues oj 

 living vegetables. — M. Raspail, in a late memoir, shews that the 

 crystals of the pandani, orchides, scillae, &f. in short, all tliose 



