464 Royut Socle it/. 



Mr. Sycr, Surgeon, City Terrace, City Road, has jn^t 

 published a very usetiil medical work, entitled "A Treatise 

 oi\ the Management of Inianls; containing the G'.neral 

 Principles of Their Domestic 'iVeatment, witli the History 

 and Method of Cure of some of their most prevalent and 

 iurmidable Diseases/' 



The above work is calcnlated to interest not only the 

 junior branches of the medical profession, but those al'^o 

 who are principallv employed in the management of chil- 

 dren -, and, we have no doubt, will prove a most valuable 

 addition to our present stock of books on domestic medicine. 



LXXXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETV. 



v-Jn Nov. 28, and Dec. 5, the conclusion of Mr. Brandc's 

 Researches on tl;e B4ood was read. The result of the au- 

 thor's experiments is, that very little iron exists in the blood, 

 that the quantity is so very small as to render it improper 

 to attribute the colour of blood to the iron it contains, and 

 that its influence must be much less than has been generally 

 supposed. 



Dec. 12, A paper by Mr. Home on the Structure of the 

 Ear ol the Whalebone Whale ( Balena Myitlceta) was read, 

 in wliich that anatomist described the nature of this organ 

 in whaies, the situation and dimensions of the tympanum, 

 and adjoining parts. 



Dec. 19. The first part of a paper by Dr. Herschel on 

 the Comet was read. This astronomer, in the course of 

 hJs observations on the comet, noticed something like a di- 

 stinct luminous body about the cciilre of its head, or what 

 some astronomers would call its nucleus. He observed this 

 luminous part change its relative position in the head, some- . 

 times appearing nearer, at others further from the side next 

 the sun ; at the same time he discovered considerable dif- 

 ference in its brillianc5\ Hence he was led to infer that 

 the comet enveloped a real planetary hodv; and afier a series 

 of observations, on the l6th of October, when the comet 

 was 114 millions of miles from the Earth, he ascertained 

 that this body was 428 miles in diameter, and surrounded 

 with a cometic atmosphere. For this purpose he viewed it 

 with seven, ten, and twenty feet telescopes, containing mag- 

 jiifiers of various powers, i'rom forty to those which magni- 

 fied GOO tiines. The reading of the remainder of this cu- 

 rious paper was deferred till a future meeting, and the So- 

 ciety adjourned till Thursday, January 9, 1812. ' 



LXXXVII. Intel' 

 It 



