458 



NATURE 



{Sept. 2ii 1876 



would seem that there must have been three or four pre-Celtic 

 stocks. Another paper by Mr. McLean was On the Anglicising 

 and Gaelicising of Surnames. 



Dr. Phene read a paper On Recent Remains of Totemism in 

 Scotland. He defined Totemism as a form of idolatry ; a totem 

 was either a living creature or a representation of one, mostly 

 an animal, very seldom a man. It was considered, from refer- 

 ence to Pictish and other devices, that a dragon was a favourite 

 representative among such people of Britain as had not been 

 brought under Roman sway. 



Mr. W. J. Knowles, of Belfast, gave a further account of the 

 prehistoric discoveries made at Port Stewart, near Londonderry. 

 They were found in pits excavated by the wind among the sand- 

 hills. The remains included arrow-heads, scrapers, hammers, 

 flakes, bone implements, and bones of the horse, ox, pig, dog, 

 &c., together with edible shells, all mixed up together, and 

 apparently of the same age. As late as the 20th of July last 

 the author and two companions had found, in less than four 

 hours, three arrow-heads, two beads, thirty or forty scrapers, 

 and several hammer- stones, as well as bones which bore marks 

 of cutting or sawing. One of the most interesting of recent 

 finds was about a dozen very small stone beads, found within a 

 few yards' radius. They were concave on one side and convex 

 on the other. Mr. Knowles had tested the cutting power of the 

 flint implements on a common beef-bone, using a little water, 

 and he found that he cut through into the hollow of the bone 

 in fourteen minutes ; he had also bored a hole through a bone 

 with a piece of flint. The marks made by the flints on recent 

 bones were very similar to those found on the ancient bones. 

 Mr. Knowles also read a paper On the Classification of Arrow, 

 heads, recommending the use of the following terms : — ytemmed, 

 indented, triangular, leaf-shaped, kite-shaped, and lozenge- 

 shaped. Commander Cameron mentioned that arrow-heads of 

 the same shape as many exhibited by Mr. Knowles were in use 

 in various African tribes. One shape was formed so as to cause 

 the arrow to rotate, and was principally used for shooting game 

 at long distances. The shape of the arrows varied according to 

 the taste of the makers ; in one district there were forty or fifty 

 different shapes. 



Commander Cameron read part of a paper by Capt. J. S. 

 Hay, relative to a strange malformation among people in the 

 district of Akem, West Africa, the first announcement of which 

 was received with some incredulity. The malformation in ques- 

 tion is confined to the male sex, and consists in a protuberance 

 or enlargement of the cheek bones under the eyes, taking the 

 form of horns on each side of the nose. The malformation 

 begins in childhood, but does not appear to be hereditary. It 

 presents no resemblance to a diseased structure, nor is it a raised 

 cicatrix. An endeavour is being made to procure skulls in which 

 the phenomenon appears, for exhibition to scientific men in 

 London. 



Miss A. W. Buckland's paper On Primitive Agriculture, 

 was very highly commended by Col. Lane Fox. We can only 

 state her general conclusion that cereals were introduced by 

 pre- Aryan races of common descent over a very wide range of 

 the world ; and they also introduced the worship of the moon as 

 an agricultural deity. The absence of agricultural implements in 

 prehistoric remains proved their extreme simplicity ; probably 

 only a pointed stick was used, a form stilF persistent. Some of 

 the stone celts may have been used as hoes, and flint flakes m.ight 

 also have been inserted in wooden frames for use as harrows. 

 Furrows and ridges seemed to have been everywhere used. 



Department of Anatomy and Physiology. 



A valuable series of researches on certain special poisons was 

 presented from the Owens College Laboratory, in papers sepa- 

 rate or conjoint, by Prof. Gamgee, F.R.S., Mr. Leopold 

 Larmuth, and Dr. John' Priestley. Vanadium and its com- 

 pounds have been specially investigated, and found to be irritant 

 poisons, rapidly causing death, often preceded by paralysis, 

 convulsions, &c. When much diluted the solutions act inju- 

 riously on bacteria, germinating seeds, fungi, &c. The results 

 are the same whether the solution is injected into the skin, the 

 veins, or the alimentary canal of higher animals. Both before 

 and after division of the respiratory nervous centre, vanadium 

 causes in the first instance a stimulation, and in the next a depres- 

 sion of respiration. When the muscles and nerves of a frog 

 poisoned with vanadium were tested by electricity after reflex 

 irritability was entirely destroyed, the work done by the muscles 



showed no differences from that of non-poisoned muscles. The 

 action of vanadium on the heart of frogs is curious ; when vana- 

 dium is injected, the inhibitory centres acting on the auricles are 

 not affected, but the vagus nerve loses its power of inhibiting the 

 contraction of the ventricle. This result causes a dilemma wliich 

 cannot yet be resolved, for it appears that vanadium is not a 

 poison of the muscular fibres. Experiments have also been 

 made on the relative poisonous activities of the ortho-, meta-, 

 and pyro- phosphoric acids and their compounds, and they have 

 been found to vary considerably in their intensity. Further, a 

 relationship in the various phenomena produced has been made 

 out between the different phosphates and vanadates. Investiga- 

 tions relating to chromium, in which rabbits, guinea-pigs, and 

 frogs were employed, demonstrate considerable differences in its 

 physiological action from that of vanadium. At first it induces 

 irritation of the alimentary mucous membrane^ and secondly it 

 acts directly on the principal nervous centres, causing convul- 

 sions, paralysis, vomiting, a fall of blood pressure, and a sudden 

 and temporary stoppage of the heart in dilatation. It is not 

 specially a poison of muscle or of nerve-trunks. 



In the discussion which followed the reading of these papers, 

 Prof. Kronecker, of Leipzig, expressed his opinion that the vana- 

 dates were really poisons of the muscular substance of the heart, 

 and he accounted for the differences between the action on the 

 auricle and ventricle by supposing a certain difference between 

 the muscular substance of these two chambers. Dr. McKendrick, 

 who presided in this department, said that Prof. Gamgee's re- 

 searches showed the advantage of the combination of the highest 

 chemical with physiological knowledge, and they led to the hope 

 that ultimately some definite laws would be discovered reguiatmg 

 the relations between chemical constitution and physiological 

 action. The field of inorganic chemistry was a very fertile one 

 for this purpose, and much more likely to yield great results of 

 this kind than the more complex considerations of organic che- 

 mistry. One important result was confirmed by Prof. Gamgee's 

 investigations, that the larger the molecule of a substance the 

 more powerful was its operation, but this was affected also by 

 the stability of the molecule. 



Prof. Gamgee also read a paper O71 the Changes of Circulation 

 which are observed when Blood is expelled from the Limbs by 

 Esmarch's Method. The experiments were conducted on healthy 

 students. When the blood was expelled from one leg the heart 

 beat more rapidly, but only for a short time, and the same result 

 followed the application of the bandage to the second leg. When 

 the heart began to beat at its usual rate the toui-niquets were 

 loosened, and in an instant the limbs, previously blanched, 

 became suffused with a blush, while sensibility therein became 

 more and more blunted, and the heart bounded off at an exceed- 

 ingly rapid rate, to return, however, to its normal beat almost 

 immediately. It has been suggested that the increase of the 

 heart's beat when the bandage is applied is intimately connected 

 with the diminution of the normal difference between arterial 

 and venous pressure. It appears likely that an increase of pres- 

 sure on the right side of the heart tends to quickening the beating 

 of the heart, and the increase of rapidity on removing the bandage 

 round the limb was no doubt the result of the sudden diminution 

 of arterial pressure thus caused. Prof. Kronecker desired that 

 it should not be lost sight of that the altered chemical composi- 

 tion of the blood also had some influence in this matter. 



Dr. Stirling, of Edinburgh, gave a very lucid account of his 

 discovery of small nerve ganglia in many parts of the lung, and 

 especially in relation to the bronchi at the base of the lung. 

 These small collections of ganglion cells may be either in the 

 course of the nerves or at their forks. They are directly con- 

 tinued by two extremities into the gray or sympathetic nerve- 

 fibres. Dr. Stirling believed that these were local nerve-centres 

 for the muscular fibres of the blood-vessels, controlling their 

 calibre, and thus regulating the amount of blood passing through 

 them. Dr. Gardner threw out the idea that these local nerve- 

 centres might have another function, that of regulating the 

 capacity of different bronchi, and so varying the amount of air 

 admitted to or expelled from particular regions of the lung. He 

 had long believed that some such arrangement must exist, in 

 consequence of stethoscopic observations both on the healthy 

 and the diseased subject. Dr. Stirling suggested that this regu- 

 lating power might reside in the higher nervous centres, for 

 stimuli could be sent down through any lipiited number of fibres 

 of the whole respiratory nerves. Many of the distinguished 

 physiologists present expressed high praise of Dr. Stirling's 

 abilities as shown in this research. 



