Nov. 23, 1871] 



NATURE 



73 



these currents will be broken up by different local circumstances; 

 and the speed of the currents will vary at various places, but 

 there will always be a system of equatorial and polar currents. 

 Is it not admissible then to suppose, asks Maury, that the cold 

 waters coming from the north and the warm waters issuing from 

 the Gulf of Mexico and made lighter by the heat of the tropics, 

 will act relatively to each other in the same way as the water and 

 the oil in the preceding example ? 



The Gulf Stream was at one time regarded as a branch of the 

 Mississippi ; but this notion must he abandoned since it has been 

 proved that the volume of the Gulf Stream is many thousand 

 times greater than that of the river, and that its water is salt, 

 while the water of the Mississippi is fresh. Next, Benjamin 

 Franklin's idea was generally adopted, viz., that the trade- 

 winds drive the waters before them into the Carribean Sea, 

 whence they issue more slowly in forming the Gulf Stream. 

 Maury, however, refuses to accept this explanation ; he admits 

 that the trade-winds may increase the speed of the stream in the 

 strait of Florida, but he maintains that it is impossible for these 

 winds to give such an impetus to the Gulf Stream as would make 

 it traverse the whole of the Atlantic as a markedly distinct cur- 

 rent. He caps his objections to tlie theory of Franklin by re- 

 marking, that as surely as a river flows along its bed only under 

 the influence of gravity, so the course of tlie Gulf Stream in the 

 midst of the ocean necessitates the existence of a never-ceasing 

 moving force ; in short, he says, if gravity did not exist, the 

 waters of the Mississippi would never leave their source, 

 and, were it not for a difference of specific weight, those 

 of the Gulf Stream would remain for ever in the tropical regions 

 of the Atlantic. But as Maury disputes the correctness of 

 Franklin's statement, viz., that the surface of the sea is above 

 the normal level in the Gulf of Mexico, and that the water tends 

 by virtue of its weij^ht to rush towards the north, and as obser- 

 vation has proved that along the western edge of the Gulf Stream 

 there flows a current of those cold waters which descend south- 

 wards as far as Florida Strait, he can no longer maintain his 

 first opinion as to the cause of the Gulf Stream. He is forced 

 to resign the hypothesis that the water of the Gulf Stream, on 

 account of its greater degree of saltness, has a specific gravity 

 greater than the water of the polar seas, to which it flows in 

 virtue of its great density, causing a current in a direction con- 

 trary to the lighter waters of these colder regions. But from the 

 moment that Maury supposes that the ocean currents have their 

 origin at the time when the water of the tropics is lighter, and 

 that of the Gulf Stream heavier than the water of the Polar 

 seas, his point of view becomes uncertain and difficult to sus- 

 tain ; and he fails all the more signally in presenting the question 

 of the currents in its true light, from the fact that at that time 

 there existed no exact method of obtaining the specific gravity of 

 the water of the ocean, the degree of saltness of the different 

 seas being then unknown. 



( To he continued. ) 



PHYSIOLOGY FOR WOMEN* 



TJY Physiology we should understand a knowledge of the 

 functions of the human body, and of the laws which regu- 

 late and maintain its various actions. The physiology of plants 

 and of the lower tribes of animals (Botany and Zoology) are 

 described by two other Professors in the University, and there 

 will be little enough time for me to condense and give an 

 account of what is now known of the sul)ject, even as I have 

 limited ir. Whatever useful information, however, can throw 

 light on human physiology, derived from every collateral science, 

 will be made use of to assist inquiry. After some preliminary 

 lectures on the histology, chemistry, the physical and vital 

 properties of the tissues, I shall more especially dwell on the 

 two great functions of nutrition and innervation. The former 

 involves an acquaintance wi'h what constitutes a proper food 

 for man — how it ,is prepared by mastication, insalivation, 

 digestion, chymification, sanguification, and respiration, to form 

 the blood ; how out of this blood the tissues are formed ; and 

 how, after these have fulfilled their proper uses, they are sepa- 

 rated from the body in the act of excretion. The latter com- 

 prehends a description of the functions of mind, including the 

 mental acts, sensibility, sensation, volition, and the varied kinds 



* Abstract of the Opening Lecture of the Ladies' Course of Physiology, 

 delivered in the University of Edinburgh, Nov. 2, by Prof. Bennett. 



of motion ; of the functions of the nerves ; of the special senses, 

 such as smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing, and the muscular 

 sense of voice and speech ; and lastly, of sleep, dreams, som- 

 nambulism, catalepsy, trance, witchcraft, animal magnetism, 

 cS:c. &c. Of the subjects included under these heads it is 

 impossible to overrate the importance in reference to their 

 relation to the health and happiness of man, his physical 

 and moral welfare, his social relations, his national resources, 

 and the prosperity of his race. I have long formed the 

 opinion that physiology, besides being essential to the medi- 

 cal student, should be introduced as an elementary subject of 

 education in all our schools — should be taught to all classes of 

 society. It is an ascertained fact that 100.000 individuals 

 perish annually in this country from causes which are easily pre- 

 ventible, and that a large amount of misery is caused by an 

 ignorance of the laws of health. The clergy should especially 

 study it — first, with a view of diminishing the difference in 

 thought existing between literary and scientific men ; and, 

 secondly, because their influence on the people from the pulpit, 

 and as parish ministers, is so important. All other professions 

 and trades, however, might beneficially study physiology, espe- 

 cially newspaper editors and reporters, who diffuse a knowledge 

 of useful things among the public ; and architects, who have 

 not yet learnt to build dwelling-houses and public halls pro- 

 perly ventilated. But women, in all classes and degrees of 

 society, have more to do with the preservation and duration 

 of human life even than men. It has been argued that, in- 

 asmuch as even the brutes know instinctively how to take 

 care of their young, so must women be able to do the same. 

 But the human infant is the most helpless of creatures, 

 and nothing is more lamentable than to witness the anxieties and 

 agony of the young mother as to how she should manage her 

 first-born. In no system of education are women taught the 

 structure and requirements of the offspring which will be com- 

 mitted to their charge ; and certainly no error can be greater 

 than to suppose that the senses and instincts are sufficient for 

 teaching man as to his physical, vital, and intellectual wants. 

 The enormous loss of life among infants has struck all who have 

 paid attention to the subject, and there can be no question that 

 this is mainly owing to neglect, want of proper food or clothing, 

 of cleanliness, of fresh air, and other preventible causes. Dr. 

 Lankester tells us, when ably writing on this topic, that, as 

 coroner fur Central Middlesex, he holds one hundred inquests 

 annually on children found suffocated in bed by the side of their 

 mothers, and he calculates that in this way 3,000 infants are 

 destroyed in Great Britain annually alone, attributable in nine 

 cases out of ten to the gross ignorance of those mothers of the 

 laws which govern the life of the child.* But women are the 

 wives and regulators of the domestic households. They also 

 constitute the great mass of our domestic servants. On them 

 depends the proper ventilation of the rooms, and especially the 

 sleeping rooms, in which all mankind on an average spend one- 

 third of their lives. Children are too often shut up all day in 

 crowded nurseries, and when ill, are subjected to numerous 

 absurd remedies before medical assistance is sent for. Their 

 clothing is often useless or neglected, the dictation of fashion 

 rather than of comfort and warmth being too frequently attended 

 to. The cleanliness of the house also depends on women, and 

 the removal of organic matter from furniture and linen, the de- 

 composition of which is so productive of disease. Further, the 

 proper choice and preparation of food is entrusted to them, — all 

 these are physiological subjects, the ignorance of which is con- 

 stantly leading to the greatest unhappiness, ill health, and death. 

 Among the working classes it is too frequently the improvidence 

 and ignorance of the women which lead to the intemperance and 

 brutality of the men, from which originate half the vice and crime 

 known to our police offices and courts of justice. Additional 

 arginnents for the study of physiology by women may be derived 

 from the consideration of — (l) the effects of fashionable clothing 

 — the tight lacing, naked shoulders, thin shoes, high-heeled 

 boots — often subversive of health ; (2) the great objects of 

 marriage — the production of healthy offspring— and all the fore- 

 sight, care, and provision required, but too often neglected 

 through ignorance, to the danger both of mother and child; (3) 

 the proper employment of women, which should be regulated 

 with regard to their conformation and constitutions ; and (4) 

 nursing the sick, which is one of the most holy occupations of 

 women, and which would be much more intelligently done if 



' See his excellent pamohlet. "What shall we Teach; or Physiology in 

 Schools." London : Groombridge & Sons, 1870. 



