626 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



present linear dimensions, work done, being pro- 

 portional to mass and the square of length (see 

 table above), or (since mass is proportional to the 

 cube of length) to l b would be reduced -fa, where- 

 as muscular power being proportional only to 

 mass, or to Z 3 , would be reduced |. We could 

 therefore lift four times as much weight as be- 

 fore. From similar considerations he shows that 

 the velocity of sound would be changed, and that 

 life altogether would become more rapid. In short, 

 real space differs from geometrical space, and all 

 its properties can not be increased or diminished 

 at once in the same proportion. M. Delbceuf's 

 critics, however, assert that he has not gone far 

 enough. For instance, he has forgotten to take 

 into account the molecule in his calculations. 

 The distances between molecules must be affected 

 by the assumed proportionate shrinkage ; in 

 other words, all bodies must be supposed to grow 

 denser, and this would affect his results. It is 

 claimed, therefore, that the outcome of this in- 

 teresting discussion is to leave matters in the 

 same status as they were before that is, a state 

 of ignorance on our part as to whether the uni- 

 verse is expanding, shrinking, or standing still. 



Registering Instruments. A. Blondel (Paris 

 Academy of Science, April 10) generalizes all 

 registering instruments by saying that all con- 

 sist of a movable piece capable of displacement 

 by a force proportional to the physical quantity 

 to be measured, and opposed by a force propor- 

 tional to the displacement, by the inertia of the 

 moving parts, and by a damping force usually 

 proportional to the velocity. The desideratum 

 is that the periodic motion of the moving piece 

 should follow a law as closely approximating 

 that of the phenomenon as possible, so that the 

 deflection shall at any instant depart as little as 

 possible from a value equal to the ratio of the 

 force to be measured and the opposing force. 

 The problem of how best to attain this he calls 

 the problem of integral synchronization. 



PHYSIOLOGY. In his British Association 

 address on biology last summer, Prof. Burdon 

 Sanderson, after reviewing the early history of 

 physiology, said that as a science it first became 

 endowed with vitality by the labors of five 

 great experimentalists Brilcke, Du Bois-Rey- 

 mond, Helmholtz, and Ludwig in Germany, 

 and Claude Bernard in France. By each and 

 all of them it was recognized that, complex as 

 the phenomena of life are, they may be to a 

 large extent, if not wholly, referred to and ex- 

 plained by well-known chemical and physical 

 processes, rendering it unnecessary to invoke 

 any new force for their manifestation ; and hence 

 the analysis of a vital process into its physical 

 and chemical constituents brings these constitu- 

 ents into measurable relation with physical or 

 with chemical standards, which is the only mode 

 of investigating them that can lead to satisfac- 

 tory results. Thus, if muscular contraction be 

 the subject on which we seek for information, it 

 is obvious that, in order to measure its duration, 

 the mechanical work it accomplishes, the heat 

 wasted in doing it, the electro-motive force 

 which it develops, and the changes of form as- 

 sociated with these phenomena, special modes 

 of observation must be used for ^aeh of them, 

 and each measurement must in the first instance 

 be separately made under special conditions and 



by methods specially adapted to the required 

 purpose. Nor is this sufficient. The guidance of 

 experiment must again be sought for. the pur- 

 pose of discriminating between apparent and 

 real causes and of determining the order in 

 which the phenomena occur. The speaker then 

 discussed the question of the specific energies of 

 the organism, or the special action which each 

 part performs, illustrating it by examples drawn 

 from the eye and visual perceptions. From this 

 he passed to the subject of physiological or ex- 

 perimental psychology, a borderland between two 

 methods of questioning that are closely related, 

 the results of which tend to show that the pro- 

 cesses concerned are as truly functions of or- 

 ganism as the contraction of a muscle or the 

 changes produced in the retinal pigment by 

 light. Although this branch has, in the opinion 

 of Prof. Sanderson, no technical action, it has 

 exercised, and will exercise in future, a helpful 

 influence on the science of life. He next con- 

 sidered the influence of light in directing the 

 movements of freely moving ceils called photo- 

 taxis and similar phenomena in which the di- 

 recting cause of movement is not physical but 

 chemical, which are grouped under the general 

 heading of chemiotaxis. This property was fa- 

 miliar in pathology as a constituent phenomenon 

 of the process of inflammation long before it was 

 understood. The hypothesis by which its expla- 

 nation was attempted gave way to this as soon as 

 it was made clear by Pfeffer. Only one princi- 

 ple that of adaptation separates biology from 

 the exact sciences, and the author insisted "that 

 organism is a fact which encounters the biologist 

 at every step in his investigations ; that in refer- 

 ring it to any general biological principle, such 

 as adaptation, we are only referring it to itself, 

 not explaining it; and that no explanation will 

 be attainable until the conditions of its coming 

 into existence can be subjected to experimental 

 investigation so as to correlate them with pro- 

 cesses in the nonliving world." 



Respiration. Is the high temperature in 

 cases of febrile disease, asks Prof. Rosenthal, of 

 Erlangen, the result of greater heat production ? 

 Are we to assume that certain poisons taken 

 into the body or produced in it by microbes 

 stimulate the nervous system, or directly influ- 

 ence the tissues in such a way as to cause greater 

 oxidation, and thus to produce more heat? 

 That is the opinion of many medical men, but it 

 is met with the great difficulty that neither the 

 expiration of carbonic acid nor the excretion of 

 oxidized nitrogenous matter is increased in so 

 great a degree as to account fully for the rise of 

 temperature. Therefore Traube suggested that 

 the rise of temperature in fever is caused not by 

 greater heat production, but by greater reten- 

 tion of heat. Experiments by the author in 

 producing fever in animals by the injection of 

 various putrid substances gave results directly 

 in accord with Traube's theory. Yet he can 

 not say that heat production is never aug- 

 mented in fever. There are great difficulties 

 in the way of making satisfactory experiments 

 on man. In a few cases including one in 

 intermittent fever, some in abdominal typhus, 

 some in pneumonia, and some in cases of fever 

 caused by the injection of Koch's tuberculin 

 he found a small but real augmentation of heat 



