of Sciences of ihe Institute of Fiance. 313 



the origin of the azote, which makes an essential element of 

 animal bcilies. M. Majendie has endeavoured to elucidate it 

 by a variety of experiments^ which aftbrd many important diete- 

 tic indications, and cannot fail to be of considerable use to me- 

 dical science *. 



M. Majrndie has also made, in common with M. Chevreul, 

 some experiments to determine the nature of the gas which de- 

 velops itself at the moment of digestion in the different parts of 

 the elementary canal. In four criminals who had taken, a little 

 before their execution, certain fixed viands, the stomach presented 

 oxygen, carbonic acid, pure hydrogen and azote, — the small 

 intestine tlie three latter gases but no oxygen ; — in the great in- 

 testine there appeared, in conjunction with the carbonic acid and 

 azote, carburetted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases. The two 

 last pertained therefore only to the great intestines : oxygen is 

 found only in the stomach ; azote and carbonic acid exist 

 throughout the whole canal, and the quantity of the last increa'^es 

 as the aliment descends. 



Medicine and Szirgery. 



Ignorance in medicine is never more dangerous than, when 

 ealled in to enlighten justice, it leads it astray by inconsiderate 

 assumptions, which draw down upon innocence the shame and 

 the pimishment reserved for guilt. A work which M. Chaussier 

 has published on Legal Medicine — the object of which is to con- 

 centrate the lights afforded by anatomy, chemistry, and physio- 

 logy, for determining the causes of death — is on this account of a 

 truly social interest. To the general rules which he prescribe^, 

 he adds, as examples, many judicial reports of remarkable cases ; 

 with his own remarks on the omissions, the errors, the obscu- 

 rities, the fallacies which are too often to be met with in these 

 important documents. The whole of this part answers com- 

 pletely to the motto of the work — " Sontibus inde tremor, ci- 

 vibus inde salus." 



The author, however, has not limited himself to what is pro- 

 mised in his title. Me has also directed his attention to many 

 faults in the ordinary manner of opening dead bodies — faults which 

 have often led to false conclusions on the nature and the seat of 

 diseases. And physiology generally will be nmch benefited by 

 the great number of acute remarks on functions too little at- 

 tended to, which this learned physiologist has interspersed through 

 his work. 



M. Larrey is one of those few surgeons who have exercised 

 their art in spheres of great extent and variety. Attached to 



• For notice of these sec Phil. Mag. for February 1817. 



Y 4 the 



