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LXXVII. Proceedings of Learned Societies: 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
May 30.—1 HE president in the chair, the reading of Mr. 
Travers’s paper was concluded. It consisted of a summary 
of his experiments on wounds made in the cavity of the 
body, as it is somewhat improperly dewominated. By 
these it appeared that the part called.a cavity is always so 
completely full, that no extravasation can take place in 
consequence of a horizontal or longitudinal puncture of the 
intestines, as in one case the lips of the wound are closed 
by pressure aud cohesion, and jn the other by inflammation. 
The Society then adjourned on account of the Whitsun 
holidays to ’ 
The 13th of June; whena curious account was read of 
a fetus having been taken from the body of a woman, 
where it had remained 52 years. The narrative was writ- 
jen by Dr. Chester, who examined the body after death. 
‘The woman was a native of Gloucester, had been taken in 
Jabour as usual, but owing to the unskilfulness of the 
miclivife was not delivered. A surgeon. was sent for; but 
when he arrived the pains of travail had subsided, and in 
seven or eight days the woman’s health recovered without 
delivery, and she lived to the age of 80, when she died of 
paralysis. Dr. C. learning the history of the ease, opened 
the body, and found an ossified globe which:contained the 
perfect child, the arms and lees\of which were somewhat 
compressed by this osseous cyst, and in some parts partial 
absorption had taken place. The foetus wastlivid but not pu- 
trid, and no mortification or corruption appeared: the 
bony shell in which it was enveloped:was of considerable 
thickness and durability. Aide 2.1) exooHnsds "1 
A: paper on the aleohol of wine,’ &e. by My, Brande 
was read. The object of this chemist was either-tocconfirm 
or refute the opinion of Fabroni, thatialcohol is a product 
of distillation, and not an essential’ part of the vegetable 
liquor. He began by trying Port!wine with subcarbonate 
of potash, which gave no-mdications ‘of alcohol till a con- 
siderable quantity of spirits was added; when the presence 
of alcohol was manifested) Mr, Bo concluded, that if al- 
cohol were really a product; its quantity must depend on 
the heat applied in distillation ;\ and with this view he di- 
stilled wine for several days at’ 180 degrees, which yielded 
precisely the same quantity of alcohol as that distilled more 
rapidly at 200°. In conclusion, he gave a table of the 
quantity 
