3G0 Royal Society. 



The writer distinctlyremembers having frequently amused him- 

 self, when a child, by applying a considerable and unremitted 

 pressure to the fore part of the eyeball, and watching the ex- 

 traordinary phenomena which gradually developed them- 

 selves, among which the most constant was aluminous ellipsis 

 in the axis of vision. Thinking the experiment an imprudent 

 one, he has long discontinued it, but being struck with the re- 

 collection of the peculiar form of the principal object, he has 

 latterly ventured to repeat it two or three times. After a lu- 

 minous appearance which may be compared to effervescence, 

 he finds that a ring of light begins to be visible, of the same 

 ellipticity as the foramen centrale in his eye, inclosing a dark 

 space, equal in diameter to its own thickness, so as somewhat 

 to resemble the remarkable perforated nebula between /3 and 

 yLyrse. The ring, however, is not continuous, but consists 

 of a number of small irregular spots of dull green, with nar- 

 row dark interstices. If the pressure is continued, some part 

 of the ring suddenly exhibits a much brighter tinge of 

 brownish pink, surrounded by a narrow border of brilliant 

 yellow ; and this hue gradually overspreads the whole ring, 

 filling up all its interstices, and covering nearly the whole of 

 the included space. It seems highly probable that this phas- 

 nomenon has some relation to the foramen centrale ; and it is 

 very remarkable that upon one occasion, soon after pressure 

 was applied to the eye, the principal ramifications of the vessels 

 near the axis of vision were seen for an instant in the form of 

 dark lines.* 



March 14, 1834. T. W. W. 



LXII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 

 Feb. 13. (continued r T % HE reading of a paper, entitled, "An Inquiry 

 from p. 295.) — A into the Nature of Death ; being an attempt 

 to ascertain its more immediate causes, with a view to the better 

 regulation of the means of obviating them." By A. P. W. Philip, 

 M.D., F.R.S. L. & Ed. — was commenced. 



Feb. 20. — The reading of Dr. Philip's paper was resumed and con- 

 cluded. 



The object of the present paper, which the author intends as a 

 sequel to those he has lately presented to the Society, and which 

 have been published in the Philosophical Transactions, is to investi- 

 gate the operation of the different causes of death, and the mode in 

 which the several powers of the living system influence each other 

 during the period of their decline. In the more perfect animals, be 

 observes, there are three distinct classes of functions, namely, the sen- 



* See Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., vol. i. p. 91, for notices of pheno- 

 mena related to those above described. — Edit. 



