100 REPORT 1870. 



I have been speaking of, and the extent of the debt which practical men owe to 

 such societies as our Ray Society, and to such publications as their colossal 

 Yolume on the snakes of India, in which Dr. Gunther's views as to the real 

 history of the striking and terrible yet instructive phenomena alluded to are 

 combined ('Reptiles of British India'/ Ray Society, 1864, p. 167). That the 

 snake-poison is an animal poison is plain enough ; that it is fatal to men and 

 animals everybody knows; but I rather think that these two facts relative to 

 it are not equally notorious, rich in light though they be, viz. that the po- 

 tency of this particular animal poison varies in direct ratio to the quantity 

 imbibed or infused, just as though it were so much alcohol, or so much 

 alcoholic tincture of musk or cantharides ; or secondly, that its potency varies 

 in direct ratio to another varying standard, viz. the size of the animal pro- 

 ducing it. Now the vaccine matter from the arm of a child is as potent 

 as the vaccine matter from the arm of any giant would be ; and whether 

 a grain or a gramme of it be used will make no difference, so long as it be 

 used rio-htly. There is a contrast, indeed, between the 7)wdus operandi of 

 these two animal poisons. I would add that iu the ' Edinbm-gh Monthly 

 Medical Jom-ual' for the present month there is a very valuable paper, one 

 of a series of papers, indeed, of the like character, by Dr. Fayrer, where _ at 

 pao-e 247, among much of anatomical and other interest, I find the following 

 important statement: — "This poison may be diluted with water, or even am- 

 monia or alcohol, without destroying its deadly properties. It may be kept for 

 months or years, dried between slips of glass, and still retain its virulence. It is 

 capable of absorption through delicate membranes, and therefore it cannot be ap- 

 plied to any mucous surfaces, though no doubt its vindence is much diminished by 

 endosmosis*. It appears to act by a catalytic form ; that is, it kills by some occult 

 influence on the nerve centres." There is such a thing as an ignorance which ia 

 wiser than knowledge, for the time, of course, only ; such au ignorance is wisely 

 confessed to iu these words of Dr. Fayrer's. An explanation may be true for 

 some, yet not thereby necessarily for all, the facts within even a single sphere of 

 study ; even a true explanation may havejjut a very limited application, as a tan- 

 gent cannot touch a circle at more thau a single point. The memoirs published in 

 our own reports by Dr. R. W. Richardson, on the action of the nitrites, and those 

 published by Dr. A. Crum Brovra and Dr. Fraser, there and elsewhere, on the con- 

 nexion between chemical constitution and physiological action, deserve especial 

 study as bearing on the other side of this discussion ; whilst Prof. Lister's papers 

 show how the reference of certain diseases to vitalistic agencies may become of 

 most vital importance iu practice. There exists, as is well kno^vn, a tendency to 

 resolve all physiological into physico-chemical phenomena: undoubtedly many 

 have been, and some more may still remain to be, so resolved ; but the public may 

 rest assured that in the kingdom of Biology no desire for a rectification of frontiers 

 will ever be called out by any such attempts at, or successes in the way of, en- 

 croachment ; and that where physics and chemistry can show that physico-chemi- 

 cal ao-encies are sufficient to account for the phenomena, there their claim upon 

 the territory will be acceded to, as in the cases we have been glancing at ; and 

 where such claims cannot be established and fail to come up to the quantitative 

 requirements of strict science, as in the cases of continuous and of discontinuous 

 development or self-multiplication of a contagious germ, and in some others, they 

 will be disallowed. 



Pathology has of late made a retiu-n to Physiology for much service she has 

 received, and this in the following directions. Dr. W. Ogle has thrown much 

 lio'ht on the physiology of the cervical sympathetic nervous system by his record 

 of a pathological history to be found in the recently issued volume (vol. lii.) of the 

 ' Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.' The rough and cruel experimentation of war 

 has had its vivisections utilized for the elucidation of the physiology of nerves, 

 and especially of their trophic function, in the valuable volume issued by the 

 American Sanitary Commission, under the editorship of Dr. Austin Flint. Dr. 

 Broadbent has done something towards elucidating the question of the localization 



* Diapedesis may account for what virulence remains, and the poison may therefore pos- 

 sibly be a cytoid. 



