66 Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. (Jury, 
Il. 4n Index to the Anatomical, Medical, Chirurgical and Physio- 
logical Papers contained in the Transactions of the Royal Society of 
London; from the commencement of that Work to the end of the 
year 1813; chronologically and alphatetically arranged. Callow, 
&c. London. 
The Philosophical Transactions contain perhaps a greater num- 
bey of valuable papers on medical and physiological subjects, than 
any other publication whatever. But they are so voluminous that 
it is a very difficult and laborious task to ascertain what they con- 
tain. Hence the utility of good indexes, which serve greatly to fa- 
cilitate the investigations of the medical student. The present In- 
dex is very well executed, and calculated in every respect to answer 
the purposes for which it was intended. 
ArticLE XIV. 
Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
Gn Thursday the 25th of May, a paper by Dr. Parry was read on 
the cause of the pulsation of the arteries. He stated the opinion of 
Heller, which is generally received by physiologists, and that. of 
Bichat, who had rejected Haller’s explanation in consequence of 
his dissections of living animals. Dr. Parry then stated the results 
which he himself had obtained by laying open the arteries of living 
sheep and rabbits, No alteration in the size of the artery could be 
perceived, but a motion of the artery backwards and forwards, cor- 
responding to the inspiration and expiration of the animal. Dr. 
Parry conceives that the artery is a tense tube always full of blood, 
and that when its diameter is diminished by external pressure, the 
blood makes an effort to restore the original size. Hence the pul- 
sation. Ido not see clearly how this supposition will account for 
the various diseased states of the pulse well known to medical men, 
unless we ascribe the aberrations In all these cases to the heart. 
At the same meeting, part of a paper by Mr. Donovan was read, 
giving an account of a new vegetable acid, discovered by him in the 
juice of the berries of the sorbus aucuparia, together with some ob- 
servations on malic acid. He extracted the juice of the ripe berries 
by pressure, precipitated by acetate of lead, washed the precipitate 
in boiling water, and threw the whole upon the filter, A hard 
white mass remained upon the filter, and the liquid which passed 
through deposited, on cooling, fine, white, silky, needle-form crys- 
tals. Scheele had stated the acid in these berries to be the ma- 
lic. But malate of lead had never been observed to crystallize. To 
clear up the subject, Mr, Donovan saturated the juice of ripe apples 
with potash, and precipitated the liquid by acetate of lead. ‘The 
6 
