1814.] Imperial Institute. 459 



it by a statement of all the anatomical characters of the divisions 

 which he thinks it necessary to establish among articulated animals, 

 and especially insects. We regret that this laborious work, calcu- 

 lated to excite the most lively interest in the lovers of comparative 

 anatomy, is not of a nature to enter into our analysis. This con- 

 stitutes a fine addition to the observations of the same author on the 

 intestinal canal of insects, which we mentioned last year. 



M. Montegre, a physician in Paris, has made a curious set of 

 observations on the habits of the common earth worm, and new 

 remarks upon the anatomy of these animals. They are herma- 

 phrodites, and each of them is productive ; and, according to the 

 author, produce small living animals They require copulation, but 

 without any intromission of parts, so that we may suppose it has for 

 object only to excite in them the movements necessary to produce 

 fecundation It takes place chiefly in the months of June and July. 

 The worms unite by means of a swelling which we observe at the 

 anterior part of their body, and which adheres closely to that of the 

 opposite individual. The young appear first in white organs placed 

 before, on the two sides of the stomach, and slide between the 

 intestines and the external muscles into a reservoir situated in the 

 thick part of the tail, where they are found full of life. The earth 

 worms exhibited no symptom to our observer to induce him to 

 suppose them affected by light or sound. But he has ascertained 

 that they do not live on earth, and he has found in their intestines 

 the remains of animals and plants. 



We have spoken two years ago of the experiments of M. Leche- 

 nault on the deleterious effects of the juice known in Java by the 

 name of upas, when introduced into sores, as well as of those 

 of MM. Delille and Magendie, which tend to prove that this 

 poison acts essentially on the spinal marrow. 



MM. Magendie and Delille, several times witnesses of the terrible 

 rapidity of its action, have been tempted to doubt whether it could 

 be carried so rapidly to the spinal marrow by means of the lymphatics, 

 and to examine whether wc ought not, at least in certain cases, to 

 admit in the veins the absorbing faculty which was generally 

 ascribed to them before we were acquainted with all the branches 

 of the lymphatic system. To fix their ideas on this subject, they 

 applied upas to parts merely connected with the body by blood- 

 vessels ; for example, thev cut oil' all the mesentery adhering to a 

 particular part of the intestine, leaving only the arteries and vein-;, 

 and after having put upas in the interior of that part, they cut it, 

 and tied its two ends. What appears still more conclusive, they 

 cut oil* a thigh, leaving only entire the artery and vein, and then 

 applied the poison to the foot. Finally, to remove even the notion 

 of invisible lymphatics belonging to the tissue of these blood-vesM I-, 

 they have removed a segment of each, putting in their place a tube 

 of quill, BO that there was no longer any communication between 

 the limb and the animal but by the blood which circulated from the 

 cue to the other. In all these cases convulsions and death took 



