120 . REPORT—1863. 
also known to arrest at once the process of fermentation—as, for instance, sul 
phurous acid; and Erni and other chemists have observed under the microscope the 
rapid stoppage of the vitality of the yeast-plant when a solution of arsenious acid 
was added to the fermenting liquor. 4. The formation of the fungus in and on 
the plant, which causes the vine disease, is prevented by applying sulphur 
to the affected vines. 5. In Cornwall, it is believed that the arsenical fumes 
from the tin-calcining furnaces exercised an influence over the potato plants 
in the neighbourhood, which preserved them from the disease then affecting 
other parts of the same county. [A statement to this effect, signed by Capt. 
Charles Thomas, sen., of Dolcoath, and sixteen cottagers, was here read.] 
6. It has been found that when a species of fermentation has taken place in the 
human stomach, resulting in the development in large quantities of a minute orga- 
nism (the Sarcina ventriculi), this morbid action can be controlled and stopped by 
the direct anti-zymotic influence of certain salts, such as sulphite of soda, in doses 
perfectly compatible with the patient’s safety. 7. In different parts of the world, 
among different races, a belief has long existed that certain antiseptic substances, 
of which arsenic may be taken as the type, are capable of acting as antidotes or 
preservative and curative agencies against atmospheric and other poisons ; and in 
some cases that popular belief has proved to be well founded. The experience of 
the multitude discovered the value of arsenic as a cure for ague long before it was 
recognized as such by physicians. The arsenical fumes of certain works in Corn- 
wall were stated by the late Dr. Paris to have stopped the ague, previously endemic 
there. More recently it has been stated, that the arsenic-eaters of Syria are pecu- 
liarly exempt from fevers and other epidemic diseases; and in India the natives 
have long used arsenic as an antidote to the poison of snakes. Dr. Robinson con- 
cluded by expressing a belief that these scattered observations were not only suffi- 
cient to justify and necessitate further inquiries in this direction, but seemed in 
themselves to shadow forth the outline of a great law, which might at some future 
time be productive of immense benefit to mankind. 
On the Nature and Varieties of Organic Effluvia, By Dr, G. Roxsryson. 
Were any proof wanting of the intimate and necessary connexion between natu- 
ral philosophy, chemistry, and natural history, on the one hand, and physiology 
and pathology on the other, it would be supplied by the gradual progress of our 
knowledge of the abnormal constituents of the atmosphere. As the natural sciences 
have advanced, many of those noxious influences which were formerly ascribed to 
supernatural causes, or to the scarcely less mysterious agencies of stars, comets, and 
volcanos, have, even in the present imperfect state of medical science, been traced 
to the operation of the ordinary laws of nature; and there is strong reason to hope 
and believe that with the advance of science the composition and relations of many 
of those subtle aérial poisons which sometimes periodically, sometimes permanently, 
desolate various regions of the earth will be ascertained, and their injurious effects 
at least in some degree mitigated or prevented. But for this great object to be 
even partially attained, the cultivators of the natural sciences must be brought into 
closer relation with physiologists and pathologists ; they must, even for the advance- 
ment of their own favourite departments of knowledge, be willing both to receive 
and impart instruction, and so cooperate in the work of elucidating the laws of life 
with those men whose special duties compel them to observe, as closely as human 
powers extend, the structure and functions of the highest of all animal organiza- 
tions. Even now. the necessity for further advances in the application of natural 
read at and chemistry to the explanation of the phenomena of life is painfully 
elt by every student of the healthy and diseased actions of the human body; and 
there are hosts of questions, all bearing most powerfully and directly on the health 
and happiness of mankind, which can only be solved by continued progress in the 
direction indicated. I make these preliminary remarks in no depreciatory spirit, 
and with a full sense of the enormous advances recently made in the development 
of the physical sciences; but I do feel that the highest, and noblest, and most 
useful study that can engage the human intellect—the study of man himself— 
has not in this country received a proper share of attention, while I am at the 
