340 



at present without any comment upon it), that I have observed a 

 jaundiced condition produced by the operation on the sympathetic 

 with the injection of the acid. The urine has been deeply tinged with 

 bile, and has given the characteristic play of colours upon the addi- 

 tion of nitric acid. In the experiments with the injection of the acid 

 alone, it has been a matter of constant observation that a flow of bile 

 has been excited into the duodenum and towards the stomach, the 

 pyloric extremity of which has been highly tinged of a yellow colour. 



Although a diabetic state of the urine may be thus artificially in- 

 duced, apparently by the direct chemical agency of an acid upon the 

 liver, yet I am not prepared to say that, beyond the addition of 

 another significant fact to our knowledge upon this matter, any at 

 present available assistance has been gained towards unravelling the 

 nature of the diabetic disease. Possibly in some cases an insufficiently 

 alkaline state of the portal blood may be the cause of a temporary 

 slightly saccharine state of the urine ; but from the observations I have 

 conducted upon diabetics, I certainly am not permitted to think that 

 such is the cause of the well-marked diabetic disease. The immediate 

 cause of the production of sugar in idiopathic diabetes, and in diabetes 

 artificially produced by operations upon the nervous system (the sympa- 

 thetic and cerebro-spinal), still remains an open point for discovery. 



Usually in my experiments with the acid injections the liver has 

 been found fairly charged with amyloid substance; but in a few instances 

 an absence of this principle has been observed, although only a short 

 time has elapsed between the injection and the period of destruction 

 of life. 



X. " On the Chemical and Physical Conditions of the Culture of 

 Cotton." By J. W. MALLET, Ph.D., F.C.S., Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Medical College of Alabama. Communi- 

 cated by ROBERT MALLET, Esq., F.R.S. Received June 4, 



1861. 



(Abstract.) 



This communication embraces the first portion of an elaborate 

 physical and chemical investigation, in which the author has been and 

 is still engaged, upon the scientific conditions involved in the success- 

 ful agriculture of the cotton plant. To this train of research he has 



