Oct. 31, 1872] 



NA TURE 



533 



perature. In my forthcoming Report, these facts (including 

 many which have not been liitherto published) are discussed, in 

 connection with the Temperatures of Inland Seas ; and if Mr. 

 I.aughton will frame a better hypothesis for the explanation of 

 them than that of the Thermal Circulation first advanced by 

 Pouillet, and latterly accepted by Herschel and Sir William 

 Thomson, I will gladly accept it. 



Mr. Laughtonwill also find that I am not ignorant of the geo- 

 graphical facts he mentions respecting the /;<v/ci;«/(j/ or j-«/t-;;/?c7'(7/ 

 nio\ements of the Ocean. But he must be well aware that a 

 current may be flowing in one direction on the surface, and a 

 tidal or other movement in a contrary .'direction at a sinall d^pth 

 beneath it. A veiy careful observer told me a few days since 

 that at a time when the snrfacc-zxiX-i^rA in the Dardanelles, urged 

 on by a south-westerly wind, was blowing inwards, he had dis- 

 tinctly seen the movement of the water at a short distance he- 

 tii-alk llu- surface to be outwards — this being indicated by the 

 direction of the water-weeds. Below this, again, as the re- 

 searches of the Slieanuater have shown, there is a deep 

 imder-current inwards. 



In confirmation of this last statement, ray friend Mr. Redhouse, 

 who resided many years at Constantinople as Translator to the 

 Embassy, has informed me that the existence of the deep under- 

 current in the Bosphorus lias long been perfectly well known to 

 the native fishermen of Constantinople, as well as to European 

 residents who amuse themselves with the sport. 



William B. Carpenter 



University of London, Oct. 29 



London University, Examinations 



Prof. W. G. Adaiis, in order to controvert my statement 

 that mechanical and natural philosophy have little to do with 

 medicine, enters into theories with regard to the production of 

 animal heat which I must leave him to settle with his colleague, 

 the Professor of Physiology in King's College. As he insinuates 

 a doubt as to my own acquaintance with the thermometer and its 

 uses, on my own behalf I may venture to say that not only did 

 Professors Graham and Brande require a knowledge of this and 

 kindred matters of'candidates for the Matriculation and First M. B. 

 Examinations of the University of London, but that years before 

 Mr. Adams was connected witii King's College, I was rather a 

 "swell " at natural philosophy and chemistry under the late Dr. 

 Miller's tuition. 



Mr. Adam's temperature must, I fear, have been abnormally 

 high, or his barometer of propriety correspondingly low, when 

 he penned the paragraph relating to the report of the sub- 

 committee, and endeavoured to gain support for his views by 

 suppressing the latter half of the quotation. The sentence really 

 stands as foUows : "The preliminary scientific examination has 

 tended to give prominence to theoretical and scientific knowledge 

 at the expense of a sound practical acquaintance with medicine, 

 surgery, midwifery," &c. ; but by the omission of the words in 

 italics Sir. Adams makes the report (contrary to its whole tenor) 

 support his view that " it is in consequence of such knowledge 

 that medical science has advanced with such rapid strides." The 

 illustration of the application of a cupping-glass is not a very 

 happy one, for cupping has for years been notoriously a purely 

 mechanical art entrasted to medically-unqualified men, who could 

 in no sense claim a knowledge of natural philosophy. 



In conclusion, may I say that the Senate of the University of 

 London at its session of the 23rd inst., took action in the matter 

 to which I have called attention, and appointed a committee to 

 consider it ; and may I express a hope that, should Mr. Adams 

 be really ill, he may not be unfortunate enough to fall into the 

 hands of one of his own medical philosophers ? 



Cavendish Place CHRISTOPHER Heath 



Can the, Stature be in any way affected by the Will? 



It is written that " no man by taking thought can add one 

 cubit unto his stature ; " but if there be any truth in tlie follow- 

 ing extract from B.ibbage's " Passages in the Life of a Philoso- 

 pher," it appears that man can, at all events, voluntarily deduct 

 nearly an ucjuivalent amount from his lieight. 



At the opening of chapter xviii. of the work just cited, Mr. 

 Babb.age makes the following statement respecting tlie celebrated 

 thiet-taker Vidocq, with whom he had an interview ; — " He 

 had a very remarkable power, which he was so good as to ex- 

 hibit to me. It consisted in altering his height to about an inch 



and a half less than his ordinary height. He threw over his 

 shoulders a cloak, in which he walked round the room. It did 

 not touch the floor in any part, and was, I should say, about an 

 inch and a half above it. He then altered his height, and took 

 the same walk. The cloak then touched the floor, and lay 

 upon it in some part or other during the whole walk. He then 

 stood still, and altered his height alternately several times to 

 about the same amount. 



" I inquired whether the altered lieight, if sustained for several 

 hours, produced fatigue. He replied that it did not, and that 

 he had often used it during a whole day without any additional 

 fatigue. He remarked that he had found this gift very useful as 

 a disguise. I asked whether any medical man had examined 

 the question, but it did not appear that any satisfactory explana- 

 tion had been arrived at. " 



Now if this had been the statement of an unscientific person, 

 or one whose powers of observation were presumably untrained, 

 it might be put aside unheeded ; but coming, as it does, from 

 one very unlikely to jump to conclusions, it seems to merit some 

 degree of attention. 



This, then, being granted, the question arises, how can we 

 account anatomically for this shortening in height ? Of this the 

 solution does not appear to be very clear. The only way in 

 which an individual could alter his height would be either by 

 adopting a stoop of his neck and shoulders, or by bending his 

 knees, and flexing his thighs upon his pelvis, or, lastly, by 

 actually shortening his vertebral column. 



Tlie two first methods may be disregarded, as they would be 

 pretty evident, even if a clo.ak were worn, and, if employed by 

 Vidocq, would scarcely have aroused the curiosity and wonder of 

 Mr. Babbage. The last only, namely, a voluntary shortening of 

 the verteliral column, remains then to be considered. 



Now, th-ere seems to be a general impression, both amon" 

 doctors and the laity so-called — though it is difficult to discover 

 any definite and concrete expression of it in the text-books — that, 

 by virtue of the compressibility of the intervertebral fibro-carti- 

 laginous discs, the stature of a man when he goes to bed is shorter 

 than when he gets out of it, the amount of shortening varying, I 

 suppose, according as the individual dangles a cane in the ' ' Row, " 

 or is employed somewhat more actively as a " fellowship porter " 

 at the docks. 



Granting, then, that there may be some passive, involuntary 

 shortening of the vertebral column to the extent of an inch or an 

 inch and a half* after the application of a weight to its summit 

 for the duration of some hours, how does a voluntary shortening 

 come to be brought about ? Since fibrous and cartilaginous 

 structures are not dhectly acted upon by the will through peri- 

 pheral nerves, such action must be produced through the medium 

 of muscles ; and here we come to the crux, what are the muscles 

 which could be employed in shortening the vertebral column ? 

 Ha^mally, the only likely muscle in the cervico-dorsal region is 

 the vertical portion of the /ongus colli, which passes from the 

 bodies of cervical vertebra; Nos. 2, 3, 4, to the bodies of the three 

 lower cervical and three upper dorsal vertebrx ; and in the dorso- 

 lumbar region there is the psoas magnus, which takes origin 

 from all the lumbar and the last dorsal vertebme, but which, un- 

 less the femur (where it is inserted) were fixed, could hardly affect 

 the vertebral column, while neurally there are the numerous 

 dorsal muscles of complex arrangement, .such as the quadratus 

 lumhorum, sacro-lumbcilis, longissimus dorsi, &c. 



Tliere seems to be, however, nothing in the arrangement of 

 such muscles as would satisfactorily account for a voluntary 

 shortening and elongation, or rather, restoration to the normal 

 length; of the vertebral column, tliough it is possible that in some 

 individual cases there may be some special endowment of inner- 

 vation and co-ordination of muscle which permits of such action, 



* Philippus Pieper, in an inaugural thesis, "De Viribus Corporis Human 

 Mechanicis," BeroHni, 1821, states, with regard to the elasticity of the ver- 

 tebral column (p. 5), that in a man of middle height who had been carrying 

 weights the difference at the endof the day was only ii"' In the last edition 

 of Druitt's " Surgeon's Vade-Mecum " it is stated (p. 341) that " the interver- 

 tebral substance is compressible to such an extent that an adult man of middle 

 stature loses about an inch of his height after having been in the erect position 

 during the day. _ Since the united thickness of the intervertebral substances 

 in an adult man is about 3"875 inches we see that they lose nearly one-fourth 

 by compression, which they do not recover till after some hours of rest." 

 Among works which I have consulted in vain upon this point are, Borelli, 

 " De Motu Animalium," and " De Vi Percussionis " (Lugdun. Batav. 1686), 

 Giraud-Teulon's " Principes de Mecanique Animale" (Paris, 1858) ; Henle's 

 " Banderlehe :" and the "Traite de la Mc'canique des Organes de la Loco- 

 motion," by G. and E. Weber, in tom. ii. of the " Encyclop»5die Anatomique." 

 W. and E.Weber's " Mechanik der Menschlichen Gewerkzcuge " [Gbttingen, 

 1836), is unfortunately in none of the kirge libraries to which I have access. 



