MO KE PORT— 1871. 



Oil tlic Caudal and Abdominal Miisclcs of tJie Cryiytohranch. 

 By Professor Humphsy, F.li.S. 



On the Existence of Ilicmocjlohin in the Muscidar Tissue, and its relation to 

 Muscular Activity. By E. Eay Lankestee. 



The author demonstrated to the Section, by means of the spectroscope, that 

 liajmoglobin existed in certain muscles of the gasteropodous moUusks, viz. the 

 active inuscles which move the lingual ribbon and lips ; at the same time the blood 

 of these gasteropods is entirely devoid of haemoglobin, being colourless. This was 

 considered a proof of the functional relation of haiinoglobin to muscular activity, 

 and coincided with the results attained by Ludwig, who demonstrated the absolute 

 necessity of the presence of oxygen in a muscle in order that it should be active ; 

 the liffimoglobiu, by its oxygen-seizing power, acts in the same way for the mus- 

 cular respiration as it does in those exceptional invertebrata which, living in foul 

 conditions, are, as the author showed, provided with liEemogiobin in their blood, 

 thus being enabled to accumulate what little oxygen there is present. 



On the Ciliated Condition of the Inner Layer of the Blastoderm in the Ova of 

 Birds and in the Omj)haloviesenteric Vessels. By B. T. Lowne. 



On the Beariny of Muscidar Anomcdies on the Darwinian Theory of the 

 Oriyin of Species, By Professor A. Macalistee, M.D. 



On a Kciu Form of Tetanomctcr. By Dr. M'Kexdjiick. 



On the Nutrition of Muscidar and Pulmonary Tissue in Health and in 

 Phthisis, tvith EemarJrs on the Colloid Condition of Matter. By William 

 Maecet, M.D., F.Ii.8., late Senior Assistant Physician to the Hospital for 

 Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Bromptton, and to the Westminster 

 Plospitcd, London. 



The author sums up the conclusions at which he has arrived as follows : — 



1. Phosphoric acid and potash may be prepared artificially in the colloid state 

 by dialyzing a mixture of chloride of potassium and phosphate of soda. 



2. Whcaten flour, potato, and rice are found to contain respectively nearly the 

 same proportions of colloid phosphoric acid and colloid potash compared to the 

 total quantities of these substances present ; and these same proportions of phos- 

 phoric acid and potash are occasionally found to exist also in blood. 



3. Plants form colloid material, although they may find some ready prepared, 

 or in process of preparation, in the soil. 



4. Muscular tissue in health is formed of three classes of substances : 1st, those 

 which constitute the tissue proper ; 2nd, those destined to become transformed into 

 the tissue proper and make up for the waste ; 3rd, those which are in process of 

 elimination. The first are solid and colloid, the second fluid and colloid, and the 

 third fluid and crystalloid ; the phosphoric acid and potash in the 3rd class of 

 substances occurring precisely in the proportion required to form crystalloid pyro- 

 phosphate of potash. This "is invariably true for the flesh of oxen, but in the 

 salmon the proportions do not quite agree with those of the above compound, 

 which appears to show that the material in progress of elimination is somewhat 

 less crystalloid in fishes than in the flesh of the higher animals ; and this would 

 account for an accumulation of eft'ete matter in the salmon. 



5. The blood-corpuscles appear to take up albumen, phosphoric acid, and potash 



