144 Institute of France. 



various muscles of the larjiix, and this part of his labours adds 

 some precision to this interestir;g point in anatomv. 



While much has been doing to extract sugar I'roni beet-root 

 and other saccliaritie vegetables, M. Marsun, proi'essor of nnedi- 

 cine at Padua, lias drawn up a memoir upon another plant, more 

 reseml)ling- t!ie sugar-cane in its botanical characters, and in the 

 .quantity and quality of the s^ugar which it yields, than any hi- 

 therto discovered. It is a large gramineous plant from the 

 Soutli of Africa, described for the first time in 1/75 bv Peter 

 Ardnino, under the name of hnlcu.s cn/er, and well charac- 

 terized by its velvet down and globular seeds. It is now culti- 

 vating in various parts of Italy, Bavaria, and Hungary. 



Indigenous coffee seems hitherto to have been less easily ob- 

 tained in Europe than sugar : tiie torrefaction of many seeds 

 and roots has been attempted with a viev/ to procure sul)stitutes, 

 but the liquor produced bv tliem had nothing of truj coffee but 

 its blackness and bitterness. 



M. Levrat, a physician at ChatiUon sur Chalaronne, thinlcs 

 that the seed of the yellow water flag of our marshes {iris pseu- 

 dacorui) is that A\'hich most approaches the coffee berry, 

 after drying it by heat and freeing it from the friable shell 

 which envelops it : it is then torrefied, and infused li!;e coffee : 

 he has at least ascertained that the seeds of the iris may cer- 

 tainly be used with effect to obtain the febrifuge properties of 

 coffee, and thus serve indirectly as a substitute for the bark. 

 This last discovery would be tlie more important, as, from the 

 circumstance of the irii growing in all marshes, it would relieve 

 nature from the reproach of having placed her remedy so far 

 away from the diseases, as in the case of bark. 



Since the custom has ceased of destroying whole swarms of 

 bees in order to get t'leir honey, various methods have been de- 

 vised for removing the bees into another hive without risk of 

 being stinig. M. Ciiambou, a p'nysician at Paris, has proposed 

 a simple and easy way: this consists in having hives which can 

 be opened at top, placing them on a glass furnished with a me^- 

 tallic plate, under which the smoke may be safely introduced : 

 if an empty hive is then placed over the upper aperture, tha 

 smoke will force the bees to ascend into it. The same gentle- 

 man has made some experiments to ascertain if it was advan- 

 tageous to cover sheep with clotlis, as the ancients did with 

 much boasted profit. M. Chambon did not find, however, that 

 the wool was increased either in value or beauty, so as to in- 

 demnify him for the expense of the cloths. 



M. Chambon aiso read a memoir on the dangers to which 

 anatomists are liable in their dissections, and on the means of 

 preventing and remedying them : these are sometimes very for- 

 midable ; 



