552 NATURE 
typographical errors. There are appended “Results of 
the Exercises.” We take leave of Mr. Muir with the 
hope that he may be soon called upon to revise his book, 
with a view to the issue of a second and succeeding 
editions. 
Experimental Chemistry for Funtor Students W. ¥mer- 
son Reynolds. Part II. Vox-Metals. (London : 
Longmans, Green and Co., 1882.) 
THIS is a most excellent little book on experimental 
chemistry, and should be especially useful to medical 
students, for whom it is chiefly designed. 
There is a very large amount of useful information and 
descriptions of experiments in clear, but not too common- 
place language, to make a beginner using the book feel at 
any loss when he shall come to use a larger work. The 
experiments are numbered for reference, and are also in 
most cases explained by an equation in symbols. 
The student who works through this book will cer- 
tainly know something practical of chemistry, as it can 
scarcely be used as a cram book. 
We notice that in some of the formule and equations 
the symbols are adorned with dashes, which it is to be 
hoped have been explained in the first part, otherwise 
they would be somewhat misleading, or at least confusing 
to students at the stage at which they commence to use 
the book. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 
or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 
LVo notice is taken of anonymous communications. 
[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 
as short as possible, The pressure on his space ts so great 
that it ts impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even 
of communications containing interesting and novel facts. | 
Vivisection 
In NaTuRE (vol. xxv. p. 482) there is a letter signed ‘‘ Anna 
Kingsford,” to which I feel compelled to reply. Not that I 
contemplate convincing your correspondent of her error, for I 
have only facts to offer ; I write only for the unprejudiced por- 
tion of the English public, to protest with indignation against 
the calumnies regarding physiology and so-called vivisection, 
especially as practised here by Prof. Schiff. 
The theoretical arguments for and against vivisection have 
been discussed to satiety ; I wish to keep strictly to a question 
of facts, and the only passages in Mrs. Kingsford’s letter against 
which I protest, are the words, ‘‘the horrible tortures perpe- 
trated by Professors Schiff, Mantegazza, and Paul Bert” ; ‘“‘the 
atrocities of vivisection”; “the prolonged and exquisite tor- 
ments to which domestic animals are subjected”; and other 
similar passages. In the first place, Mrs. Kingsford shows how 
ignorant she is of the subject she undertakes to enlighten the 
public upon, by mentioning Mantegazza as ‘‘a fair type” of a 
Continental vivisector, when the truth is that Mantegazza did 
long ago make some experiments on living animals, but has not 
done so for very many years, is, in fact, not a vivisector. 
As I have not been in Prof. Paul Bert’s laboratory, and have 
therefore not been an eye-witness of his methods, I will say 
nothing of the attack against him. 
I now come to Prof. Schiff, who, of all living physiologists, 
is the one who carries out the most numerous experiments, and 
who may therefore fairly be taken as a typical representative of 
physiological research on the Continent. Having been for the 
last two years constantly in the learned professor's laboratory 
(and, I may add, in a perfectly independent position), I am able 
to give authoritative testimony as to his methods of study, and 
this testimony is, that ever during this time was vivisection 
practised on a feeling animal ; and I have repeatedly heard Prof. 
Schiff (whose word no one will dare to doubt) declare that he 
never in his life had operated on an animal that could feel pain 
—a fact which any one who knows this pre-eminently humane 
and kind man, will readily understand. I do not say that no 
vivisections are carried out; on the contrary, often several 
operations included under this comprehensive denomination are 
| April 13, 1882 
performed in one day, but zever so as to cause pain. Either the 
animal is in-tantaneously killed by a puncture in the ‘‘ medulla 
oblongata,” and artificial respiration set up, or it is completely 
ansthetised, and Prof. Schiff’s first care is always to see that 
this has been properly done. ‘The trial with the eyeball isa 
sure criterion, ‘{he anzsthetised animals are eventually killed 
in the same manner as the others, while still completely uncon- 
scious ; few other dogs have such a painless death. In those 
cases where animals which have been operated on are kept alive 
for ulterior observations, the best proof that they do not suffer 
pain is the excellent appetite and healthy appearance of the dogs ~ 
in the school of medicine here, where they are, moreover, 
excellently well-housed and fed, for Prof. Schiff says: “I like 
my dogs to be well cared for in every way.” So much for the 
‘horrible tortures” perpetrated on the continent. 
I may be allowed to repeat a few words fallen from Prof. 
Schiff’s mouth as characteristic of the man. On one occasion I 
heard him say: ‘‘I cannot bear the least pain being inflicted on 
animals ;” on another, seeing me petting a dog which was to be 
experimented upon, he said: ‘‘one must never caress a dog 
before an operation, for otherwise, although one knows it feels 
no pain, one’s hand is not steady for cutting.” 
It is true that there do exist experiments in which the animal 
must retain consciousness in order that the effects may be 
watched ; but just because the animal would suffer pain, c¢hese 
experiments are never carried out by Prof. Schiff. 
Prof. Schiff has repeatedly invited his calumniators (both 
publicly and privately) to come to his laboratory, which is open 
at every hour of the day to all who wish to form an unbiased 
opinion on the methods of vivisection, and to see with their own 
eyes the real facts of the case; not one has ever accepted this 
invitation—which shows how deep the love of truth is in some 
hearts. B.Sc., STUDENT OF MEDICINE 
Geneva, April 6 
Precious Coral 
I wAs very much interested in Prof. Moseley’s note on “ Pre- 
cious Coral,’’ which appeared in NATURE (vol. xxv. p. 510)- 
During, or rather after our deep-sea explorations in the Mediter- 
ranean, last summer, the Washington passed a week exploring 
the coral-yielding banks between Sicily and Cape Bon (Africa) ; 
we were also therefore on the coral-banks of Sciacea. Most of ~ 
the coral I saw—I mean, of course, precious coral—was dead 
and blackened, and I saw large quantities in the same state, and 
from the same locality at Naples. At the extreme edge of 
the Sciacea bank is the extinct volcano, now covered with a 
few fathoms of water, known as Ferdinandea or Graham’s 
Island. I believe that the eruption of that voleano may explain 
the quantities of dead coral around. As to the black colour, I 
am of opinion that it may be due to the decomposition of organic 
matter, rather than to the presence of binoxide of manganese ; 
some of the bottom samples which I collected at various depths, 
turned quite black after a few weeks. The disappearance of the 
black colour on prolonged exposure to the sun, would, I believe, 
confirm my view. It must also be borne in mind that precious 
coral, in the Mediterranean at least, never is found in mud or in 
muddy waters, but grows mostly on a regular coral-rock formed 
by Madrepora of different species. 
I have often heard of Japanese coral, and saw some fine 
samples at the International Fishery Exhibition of Berlin, in 
1880 ; they came from Okinava, or Kotshi, where, in 1877, a 
quantity of the value of 9000 dollars was collected. It is this 
species which has been called Corallium secundum by Prof. 
Dana, if I am not mistaken. 
A third species or variety of precious coral is found near the 
Cape de Verd Islands, especially San Jago; it has been distin- 
guished by Prof. Targioni as C. /ubrani. 
As a finale, 1 may add that very little precious coral is found 
off Torre del Greco, from which place most of the coral fisher- 
men hail, and in which place much of the coral collected is 
worked. Henry HILLYER GIGLIOLI 
R, Istituto di Studi Superiori in Firenze, April 6 
Phenological Observations on Early Flowers and Winter 
Temperatures 
THE relation of temperature to the earliness of the season is 
too obvious to be overlooked, but methods of representing it 
numerically are of considerable interest. Since 1878 this has 
been done for about thirty stations in the United Kingdom by 
