52 Royal Society :—. 
pose when exposed to the air. It melts at 167°, and is thus distin- 
guished from pyrocatechine. In its chemical relations it is indiffer- 
ent; it forms no combinations with metallic oxides, in which it 
again differs from pyrocatechine. It reduces the oxides of the 
noble metals with great facility, and is completely decomposed 
by the alkalies. It is oxidized by nitric acid to oxalic acid, and 
by the action of chlorine it is converted into chloranile, C!? Cl* O*. 
The analytical data lead to the formula C**H? 0%, It differs 
from pyrocatechine by containing more oxygen: 
C* H!2 09 =2(C!2 Hé 04) +0. 
X. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
[Continued from vol. xviii. p. 542.] 
May 26, 1859.—Sir Benjamin C, Brodie, Bart., Pres., in the Chair. 
TPHE following communications were read :— 
«On the Intimate Structure, and the Distribution of the Blood- 
vessels of the Human Lung.’’ By A. T. H. Waters, Esq. 
«Qn certain Sensory Organs in Insects, hitherto undescribed.” 
By J. Braxton Hicks, M.D. Lond., F.L.S. &c. 
«On Lesions of the Nervous System producing Diabetes.” By 
Frederick W. Pavy, M.D. Lond. &c. 
The author commenced his paper bystating, that all the experiments 
he had performed since his communication on the ‘ Alleged Sugar- 
forming Function of the Liver” had been piaced in the possession 
of the Royal Society, had confirmed the conclusions he had there 
arrived at. As far as his knowledge extended, it might be said that 
in the healthy liver during life there is a substance which he had 
spoken of under the term of hepatine, and which possesses the che- 
mical property of being most rapidly transformed into sugar when 
in contact with nitrogenized animal materials. In the liver after 
death this transformation takes place, but in the liver during life 
there seems a force or a condition capable of overcoming the che- 
mical tendency to a saccharine metamorphosis. 
Experiments are mentioned to show that when the medulla oblon- 
gata is destroyed, and the circulation is maintained by the performance 
of artificial respiration, the sugar formed in the liver as a post- 
mortem occurrence is distributed through the system, and occasions 
the secretion of urine possessing a strongly saccharine character. 
Although the destruction of the medulla oblongataleads to this effect, 
yet division of the spinal cord, which has been practised as high as 
between the second and third cervical vertebree, has not been attended 
with a similar result. The brain (cerebrum) has also been separated 
from the medulla oblongata by section through the crura cerebri, and 
from the results of the experiments in which this operation has been 
