PHYSIOLOGY. 



581 



of. D. Milroy, Dr. Alexander King, and others 

 participated, appears to have been that it is 

 double, a part of the acid being the result of 

 the disintegration of the nuclein taken in with 

 the food, and another part proceeding from de- 

 structive changes of the nuclein contained in the 

 body; or, as Prof. Halliburton expressed it, part 

 of exogenous and part of endogenous origin. The 

 latter portion is derived from the metabolism of 

 the leucocytes that are so abundantly formed 



I after the ingestion of food. 

 The research of Prof. A. Herzen, of Lausanne, 

 into the function of the spleen is reviewed in the 

 Lancet by Henry T. Bellamy, who finds that from 

 the bulk of the evidence collected by M. Herzen 

 there is little room for doubt that., apart from 

 the htematopolitic and possibly allied functions 

 possessed by the organ, it furnishes a product of 

 " internal secretion " which causes in the pan- 

 creas the transformation of its inert zymogen into 

 active trypsin. 



After a long series of experiments and observa- 

 tions, E. O. Hultgren and O. A. Anderson report 

 that extirpation of the suprarenal capsules in 

 cats, dogs, and rabbits occasioned death within 

 a week or ten days. Removal of an organ on one 

 side was followed by the animal becoming thin 

 for a short period. Retention of a small frag- 

 ment was found sufficient to preserve life, but 

 when both organs were removed death super- 

 vened, with great fall of temperature. The me- 

 tabolism of albumin, the quantity of haemoglobin, 

 and the number of the red corpuscles were not 

 affected. Injections of small quantities of adrenal 

 extract caused temporary improvement, but 

 when large quantities were injected death oc- 

 curred in the rabbit from oedema of the lungs. 

 Injections of extracts of adrenals of rabbits, 

 guinea pigs, cats, rams, and steers caused rise 

 of temperature in rabbits, while injection of 

 adrenals of sheep, oxen, and pigs usually caused 

 fall in temperature. 



Muscular System. The physiological effects 

 of creatin, a normal constituent of flesh, and one 

 of the principal constituents of most meat ex- 

 tracts, and of creatinin, its anhydride, a normal 

 constituent of human urine, and the value of 

 those substances as nutrients have been inves- 

 tigated with much pains by Prof. J. W. Mallet. 

 From his experiments the author draws as his main 

 conclusion that by far the larger part of the flesh 

 bases ingested, if not absolutely the whole, does not 

 undergo metabolism with the production of urea 

 or anything else, but, on the contrary, is elimi- 

 nated by the kidneys. In the case of creatinin 

 it is excreted unchanged, while creatin is changed 

 wholly or very largely into creatinin. The fact 

 of the quantitative recovery of creatin and crea- 

 tinin from the urine evidently accords fully with 

 the generally accepted belief that these sub- 

 stances can not serve to build up proteids, and 

 are therefore not to be classed among tissue- 

 forming food materials. On the whole, the in- 

 vestigation is unfavorable to the idea of the 

 m-atin of living muscle being the antecedent of 

 urea in nitrogenous metabolism. Admitting that 

 it is still an unsolved problem what nitrogenous 

 substance or substances may properly be re- 

 garded as intermediate between muscle proteids 

 and urea, it may fairly be considered established 

 for nutrition investigations that the so-called 

 flesh bases creatin and creatinin occurring in 

 food may be entirely disregarded as sources of 

 energy. In the discussion of the results of anal- 

 yses of meat and forms of food prepared from it, 

 such as soups and the like, it is evidently wrong 

 and misleading to confound together, under the 



head of protein or proteid materials, the proteids 

 proper, capable of building up the nitrogenous 

 tissues of the living body, and of furnishing mus- 

 cular heat and energy by oxidation, and these 

 so-called flesh bases, which, taken in along with 

 food, are not available for either of these im- 

 portant purposes. Even if viewed in the light of 

 nerve stimulants only, and thus to be classed with 

 tea and coffee as adjuncts to food rather than as 

 true food itself, meat extracts, so far as the flesh 

 bases creatin and creatinin are concerned, are 

 shown by the investigation to be very much less 

 active as to their effects upon the nervous sys- 

 tem than they have been commonly reported. 



Experiments made by Prof. Angelo Mosso with 

 his ergograph indicate that in soldiers after 

 forced marches the power of the muscles of the 

 arm and the hand is diminished; so that, as 

 loteyko has observed, while moderate exercise of 

 the psycho-motor centers produces increased 

 activity of both sensory and dynamogenic cen- 

 ters, exhaustion of one center, such as that affect- 

 ing movements of the lower limbs, causes depres- 

 sion of all centers, and has a tendency to become 

 generalized. Prof. Mosso suggests that fatigue is 

 due to some toxin entering the blood current. 



Dr. William Ewart, in a lecture on Some of the 

 Mechanism of the Heart and its Valves, dwelt 

 upon the presence of a supra-papillary and a 

 retro-mitral space in the ventricle. He showed 

 that during contraction the posterior or mitral 

 flap is thrown into pleats, admitted a powerful 

 ventricular aspiration, and declared his agree- 

 ment with those who accept a muscular and a 

 valvular element in the first sound. 



Investigations by Dr. J. L. Bunch on the in- 

 nervation of the muscular coat and the vessels 

 of the intestine go to show that these parts are 

 supplied by the splanchnic nerves, which contain 

 both constrictor and dilator fibers derived pri- 

 marily from the spinal cord, and that in dogs 

 they leave the spinal cord by the anterior roots 

 of the post-cervical nerves from the second to 

 the sixteenth, the higher roots containing a 

 larger percentage of dilator fibers, the lower roots 

 of constrictor fibers. 



In his Croonian lecture on Degeneration of the 

 Neuron, Dr. Frederick Nott expressed himself in 

 favor of the view that the terminal arborization 

 of the axis-cylinder process of one neuron does 

 not anatomically fuse with the cell body and den- 

 drons of another, and that trophically and genet- 

 ically the two are independent; yet that there is 

 a physiological connection between adjacent neu- 

 rons. He also pointed out that the integrity of 

 the sensory moiety of a reflex is almost as im- 

 portant as that of the motor segment in other 

 words, that sensation must be acute and perfect 

 if the corresponding muscular movements are to 

 retain their delicacy and precision. 



Nervous System. In a Lees and Raper Me- 

 morial lecture, at St. James's Hall, London, on 

 the Effect of Alcohol on the Human Brain, Victor 

 Horsley limited himself to the effects of small 

 doses of the drug. He began by saying that all 

 drugs had what is called a selective action, in- 

 asmuch as they act by virtue of a chemical affin- 

 ity with the different parts of the structure, 

 producing different effects in so far as these 

 same parts differed. In regard to the effect 

 of small quantities of alcohol on the central 

 nervous system it was necessary to consider 

 the results of the drug on the higher psychical 

 functions of the brain that is, on ideation or 

 the intellectual thinking apparatus. The effect 

 on the centers in the brain for voluntary action 

 and the effect on the cerebellar membrane for 



