174 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [June 



be preserved by usual herbarium methods. Get freshly 

 attacked leaves as well as advanced specimens. Label 

 and preserve careful data regarding time, place, host-plant 

 etc., as in coarser botanical work. The material can be 

 stored up for microscopical study during the winter wheu 

 fresh objects are scarce or entirely wanting. 



Action of Twenty Per Cent Watery Solution of Alcohol on 



Brain Tissues. 



EPHRAIM CUTTER, M. D. & G. B. HARRIMAN, D. D. S. 



This can only be told fully by vivisection of a brain 

 drunken and by vivisection of a brain in health. Unless 

 criminal laws are altered to permit human vivisection the 

 comparison cannot be made. In this line a wish was ex- 

 pressed that Quiteau's brain might have been utilized 

 and make his crime contribute to the stock of our knowl- 

 edge. No doubt such opportunities for comparison might 

 be had on battlefield or ship but such positions are not 

 convenient places in which to study. Hence we resorted 

 to the expedient of studying fresh brains of calves, cor- 

 tical portions, with and without contact with 20 per cent 

 alcohol in water. As far as possible allowances were 

 made for post-mortem changes, 



The most marked morphological changes were found — 

 to wit, the nerve fibers became contracted and granular 

 with ragged outlines. The mass was mottled with irreg- 

 ularly shaped glass-like spots, surrounded by fields of 

 amorphous granules and especially beautiful dissections 

 of multipolar ganglionic nerve cells. These were very 

 characteristic and impressive as showing where the primal 

 action of the cerebral nerve centers begins and showing 

 the nearest physical agency that we can trace to the bodi- 

 ly home of the soul. We regret that we did not photo- 

 graph them. 



The figure on the right shows the 24-hour dissection of 



