io8 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



Dr. Marcet (guest) stated that, according to M. Bernard, 1 

 a considerable quantity of sugar existed in the liver, and 

 was also present in the heart, the secretion of which ceased 

 immediately when the pneumogastric nerve was cut. M. 

 Bernard had also found the pancreatic juice to have a 

 chemical action on fatty matters, causing their assimilation 

 and conversion into parts of the chyle, so that the one was 

 necessary for the healthy formation of the other. In rabbits 

 the secretion between the biliary and pancreatic ducts was 

 found to differ much (as described) from the chyle. These 

 experiments, he thought, might have an important bearing 

 on certain forms of disease. Mr. Bowman mentioned another 

 discovery of M. Bernard, that an animal after injury to its 

 brain passed urine loaded with sugar, and Mr. Bell said that 

 green food, taken from the stomach of a rat and pressed 

 out of a silk bag, became milky when treated with bile. 



During the 22nd meeting (June 2ist), Sir Philip Egerton 

 read a letter from Professor Agassiz 2 announcing his dis- 

 covery that the heterocercal tail of a young Lepidosteus 

 exhibits the same form as that of Dipterus or Diplopterus 

 in the Old Red Sandstone. He had also obtained from 

 Lake Superior a new genus intermediate between the 

 Salmonoid and Percoid fishes, and thus illustrative of forms 

 occurring in the Cretaceous Period. Besides this, Tertiary 

 forms are met with, and he remarks, "It is one of the 

 extraordinary features of this continent that there are so 

 many types of ancient families still living here." 



Sir R. Murchison then communicated a letter from M. 

 Barrande, 3 of Prague, who wrote that he had succeeded in 



1 Claude Bernard (1813-1878), the noted French physiologist, who began 

 to make his mark about 1841 and gave up a Professorship at the Sorbonne 

 in 1868 for one at the Jardin des Plantes. His first important work 

 was on the function of the pancreas gland, and his second on the glycogenic 

 function of the liver. To these researches Dr. Marcet doubtless referred. 



1 J. L. R. Agassiz (1807-1873), born at Motier, Canton Friborg, Switzer 

 land, and, after graduating in medicine at Munich, made his mark as a 

 naturalist and became a Professor at Neuchatel. From 1836 to 1844 he 

 devoted much time to studying the glaciers of the Alps. 



3 Joachim Barrande (1799-1884). Born at Sauges in France, he followed 

 Charles X. into exile, and became tutor to the Comte de Chambord. Settling 

 at Prague, he devoted himself to the study of the Palaeozoic fossils of 



