Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 79 
bola was laid before the society by the Rev. Mr. Helens; 
- but it was of a nature not to be read. 
A curious account of a child born in Wales without eyes, 
or rather without eye-balls, was communicated by Mr. 
Jones: a small round white ball is found in the place of 
the eye, and the tunica conjunctiva was perfect. The mo» 
ther attributes this organic defect to a fright which she re- 
ceived when seven months gone with child. 
A letter from Dr. Wollaston to Dr. Marcet was read, in 
which Dr. W. related his experiments formerly made with 
a view to ascertain the existence of sugar in the serum of 
the blood of diabetic patients. The result of a considers 
able number of experiments, as well as the imperfect at- 
tempts of Mr. Cruickshank and Dr. Rollo, convinced him 
of the non-existence of sugar in such serum. Dr. Mar~ 
cet, at the instance of Dr. Wollaston, also made some 
experiments with the same view, and administered five 
grains of prussiat of potash (without danger) to a patient 
whose urine yielded a blue colour on the addition of iron. 
On the 17th and 24th, a long paper by Mr. Macartney 
was read on the nature of vital heat. Mr. M. related the 
appearances exhibited in a great number of experiments on 
eggs and rabbits, made with a view to ascertain the origin 
and progress of animal heat in the young chick, &c. and’ 
from them concluded, that vital heat does not depend on 
respiration, and that it may exist in any form of matter. 
This conclusion, however, he expressed with extreme diffi- 
dence; and) as if either afraid of its validity or of the ac- 
curacy of his own experiments, partly wished to decline 
giving any opinion on a subject which he still deemed 
very complex and imperfectly understood. 
XVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
To Mr. Tilloch. 
Sir, Me. Corszerrson’s communication in your 
Magazine of October !ast, on the mode of increasing the 
charge of electrical jars and batteries, brought to my recol- 
lection a scheme entertained some years ago by the late 
Mr. Brooke of Norwich, (inventor of the electrometer men* 
tioned in Mr. Cuthbertson’s Practical Electricity, page 173,) 
for preventing the bursting of jars by spontaneous or other 
discharges :—whether it succeeded or failed, I know not. 
It was by previously coating the jars’ with writing-paper- 
pasted on within and without, so as to form an interme- 
diate surface between the glass and the tin-foil on each Gi 
“he 
