466 
NA TORE 
[Oct (, 1870 
ago had not yet had time to produce all the mischievous results 
which would follow if it were persevered in; but it was clear 
to him that in future they should have nothing to do with com- 
petitive examinations and Civil Service commissioners, in appoint- 
ing assistants to the different departments, and he would prefer, 
as was suggested in the paper, that appointments should be 
made by the mild despotism of the director or superintendent of 
the museum, 
Department of Zoology and Botany 
Dr. B. W. Richardson read the Refort on Methyl Com- 
pounds. He commenced his report by giving a review of 
some results of his previous reports, describing at length the 
action of nitrite uf amyl and hydrate of chloral, both of which 
had proved of the greatest service in the treatment of disease. The 
former had been applied most usefully in the treatment of tetanus ; 
the latter had been so largely applied as a narcotic, that since the 
discovery of its narcotic properties by Liebreich, more than a 
million persons had been successfully subjected to its influence. 
After his review of the past, the author brought forward new 
matter of research, introducing detailed accounts of the action of 
ethylate of sodium, ethylate of potassium, sulphur alcohol, sul- 
phide of ethyl, bromide of ethyl, and triethylic ether. The facts 
respecting the action of these substances were all rich in interest, 
but two may be named specially, viz., in relation to the ethylates 
of sodium and potassium, and to triethylic ether. The first, when 
brought into contact with the surface of the body, acts as the most 
potent of known caustics, and promises to be rendered painless as 
wellas caustic. The second isa new volatile anesthetic, the sleep 
produced by which is deep, gentle, and apparently free from 
danger. Inafinal part of his report, Dr. Richardson dwelt on some 
general physiological observations, which attracted considerable 
attention. He showed that by the action of some of his anzes- 
thetics, he could induce insensibility to pain without fully destroy- 
ing consciousness ; and he explained that in time this progressive 
step would be entirely realised. He described the effect pro- 
duced by repeating applications of volatile agents upon the 
external nerves’ expanses ; and on the results of direct experiment, 
he explained that certain agents, such as nitrite of amyl, act 
immediately through the nervous system without any absorption 
of them by the blood. At the close of his report, Dr. Richard- 
son showed how the elementary modification of the bodies of 
an organic series influences the physiological action of each 
compound, and expressed a hope that, by continued research, 
physiologists, moving with the chemists, would speedily bring the 
subject of the action of medicinal agents into the ranks of 
positive science. 
Dr. Brown-Sequard read two papers on the Apparent trans- 
mission of abnormal conditions due to accidenial causes, and on 
various alterations of Nutrition due to Nervous Influence. 
The President of the Association (Professor Huxley) said: 
The great theoretical problem they had now to determine was 
what effect artificial modifications and external conditions had 
upon living organisms—whether they produced changes which, 
being transmitted hereditarily, became the basis of new races. 
Referring to a resolution which had been brought forward at a 
former meeting, which endeavoured to pledge the Association to 
abstain from making grants of money to persons engaged 
in experiments which involved vivisection, he said they had 
before them that day one of the most experienced physiologists 
and vivisectors of his day, and he had only to ask the 
audience to form their own judgment as to whether Dr. Brown- 
Sequard was likely to inflict one particle of pain upon any 
creature whatever without haying a plain and definite purpose 
in view. For himself he might say that nothing was more 
grievous to him than to think of the existence of pain in 
anything whatever. He hated to see it inflicted upon animals, 
and he carried his objection to its infliction so far that he 
disliked even to see a man beating his wife. Neither Dr. 
Brown-Sequard nor himself were indifierent to pain, and he 
hoped that in no sense were they cruel. He thought that the 
gentleman who brought forward the resolution to which he had 
referred, hardly knew what he was dealing with. If his friend 
Dr. Brown-Sequard would pardon his referring to a matter per- 
sonalto him, he would remind the meeting that that great ex- 
perimental physiologist, and that accomplished vivisector, who 
had, he supposed, performed as many vivisections as any man 
in the world, some years ago thought it advisable to turn the 
vast knowledge of the diagnosis of disease which he had ob- 
tained by this means into actual practice, and he (Piofessor 
Huxley) could assure them, from what he knew, that before 
long his wonderful mastery over symptoms caused his consult- 
ing rooms to be absolutely crowded by human beings suffering 
under multiform varieties of nervous disorders, who sought at 
his hands and from his knowledge that relief which they 
could not obtain elsewhere. The prevention of cruelty to 
animals, when understood in its proper sense, was as gcod 
an object as men could devote themselves to, but when they 
confounded the brutal violence of the carter or the wife-beater 
with an experiment carried out by a man of science, gently and 
for the purpose of relieving misery, the enthusiasis in that cause 
should change their name, and convert themselves into a 
society for the promotion of cruelty to mankind. If that 
question came before the Asscciation again, and he hoped it 
would, he trusted they would recollect that the order of nature 
was such that certain kinds of truth were only attainable by ex- 
periments upon living animals, and that when they might result 
to the welfare of thousands and thousands of untold hwwoan 
beings who might otherwise be suffering unimaginable misery, 
those experiments were perfecily justifiable. 
Dr. R. McDonnell, F.R.S., of Dublin, said that the President 
of the Association had viewed the admirable communication of 
Dr. Brown-Sequard from the Darwinian point of view, one of 
the greatest interest. He, like Prcfessor Humphry of Cambridge, 
regarded such communications rather in their practical bearings, 
but first he might be allowed to say, how entirely he concurred 
with the President in his observations on the subject of experi- 
mental researches conducted upon animals. Indeed Dr. 
Richardson’s report was in itself the most unanswerable 
argument that such experiments are undertaken with the hope 
of diminishing human suffering, and whosoever would oppose 
such an important and indeed successfuljmeans of attaining this 
end must be prepared to submit to the imputation of desiring 
that pain should remain unalleviated. Dr. McDonnell ther 
alluded to the subject referred to both by Dr. Richardson and Dr, 
Brown-Sequaid in speaking of the transmission along the 
nerves of certain sensations, and their being intercepted. He 
said that he had long felt some difficulty about adopting the 
hypothesis of Dr. Brown-Sequard that there existed distinct 
conductors for various sensations, as those of heat, pain, tickling, 
contact, &c. In explanation of the remarkable cases sometimes 
met with in which an individual who felt perfectly the contact ot 
one’s hand yet could not distinguish heat or cold, he proposed 
another hypothesis than that of distinct conductors, and he was 
indeed happy, on this occasion, to have an opportunity of sub- 
mitting this hypothesis to the section and to Dr. Brown-Sequard 
for consideration. His (Dr. McDonnell’s) hypothesis was, in 
fact, an application of the undulatory hypothesis to the propa- 
gation of nervous sensation—he supposed that sensations such 
as*those of heat, pain, contact, ax well as those of various 
colours, of form, of sound, were waves of different wave-lengths ; 
and that, under certain circumstances, some waves were absorbed 
or intercepted while others passed on to thesensorium. He, in 
fact, drew an analogy or illustration of his hypothesis from Prof. 
Tyndall’s well-known experiments on the absorption of radiant 
heat by vapours or scents passed into the air filling a glass tube. 
The glass tube in this experiment represented the nerve tubule, 
the slight cnange effected in the air contained within it produced 
by the introduction of the minutest quantity of scent causes an 
absorption 77 ¢ransitu of some waves of heat, others pass; thus, 
according to his supposition, might be explained the effect on 
vision of santonine. The experiment of seeing the comple- 
mentary colour upon gazing at a white ground after looking upon 
a coloured disc, might be explained thus: A slight chemical 
change is effected in the nerve tubule by gazing at the colcured 
disc ; when the white ground is looked upon, all undulations 
pass through save those which are absorbed, viz., those of the 
colour previously looked at. This, of course, gives the comple- 
mentary colour. Many phenomena connected with sensation, 
Dr. McDonnell conceived, would find in this hypothesis a simpler 
explanation than in that of distinct conductors. 
Department of Ethnology and Anthropology 
On the Anthropology of Lancashire.—Dr, Beddoe, President 
of the Anthropological Society of Loncoi. The author drew 
a marked distinction between the inhabitants of North and 
South Lancashire, both as to their ethnological history and 
their present physical characteristics. In the former, he 
believed the Norse element to  preponderate, having 
been introduced, probably, by colonisation from the Isle cf 
