297 



4thly. The livers of dogs contain sugar, whether the diet is animal 

 or vegetable. 



Sthly. Under favourable circumstances, saccharine matter may 

 be found in the liver of an animal after three entire days of rigid 

 fasting. 



6thly. The sugar found in the bodies of animals fed on mixed 

 food is partly derived directly from the food, partly formed in the 

 liver. 



7thly. The livers of animals restricted to flesh diet possess the 

 power of forming glucogen, which glucogen is at least in part trans- 

 formed into sugar in the liver ; an inference which does not exclude 

 the probability of glucogen (like starch in the vegetable organism) 

 being transformed into other materials besides sugar. 



8thly. As sugar is found in the liver at the moment of death, its 

 presence cannot properly be ascribed to a post mortem change, but 

 is to be regarded as the result of a natural condition. 



II. " Hereditary Transmission of an Epileptiform Affection 

 accidentally produced." By E. BROWN-SEQUARD, M.D. 

 Communicated by Dr. SHARPEY, Sec. E.S. Received 

 December 23, 1859. 



It is well known that the number of facts which seem to prove 

 that an accidentally produced affection may be transmitted by parents 

 to their offspring is still small, and that serious objections have been 

 raised against most, if not all, the facts of this kind. The following 

 observations seem to show peremptorily that, at least in one species of 

 animals, this kind of transmission may occur. 



I have shown that certain injuries to the spinal cord, in Guinea- 

 pigs and other Mammals, are followed, after a few weeks, by a con- 

 vulsive disease, very much like epilepsy. Fer several years it has 

 been frequently observed that the young of a number of those epi- 

 leptic animals, which I kept in my laboratory, were at times attacked 

 with epileptiform convulsions. For many months I have made 

 regular observations on this curious subject, and I have ascertained, 

 by careful watching, that six young guinea-pigs which had frequent 

 attacks of convulsions, were the offspring of one male and two female 



