92 REPORT— 1866. 



blood-solution haxe been treated •witli carbonic oxide, whilst, when the tempera- 

 ture has been raised to 172°, the albumen has separated in flakes, the blood co- 

 louring-matter remains wholly unchanged. It is only when the temperature is 

 raised to about 185° that the colouring-matter commences to coagulate. The co- 

 agulum which is obtained on further heating is of a reddish colom*, unlike that of 

 normal blood. Fourthly, if blood be saturated with CO, and evaporated to dry- 

 ness at a temperature below that at which the colouring-matter coagulates, the dry 

 residue yields its colouring-matter to water, and the solution presents all the op- 

 tical properties of carbonic-oxide blood. When the solution is boiled, the com- 

 pound with the colouring-matter yields carbonic-oxide gas. Fifthlj', poisoning by 

 pure carbonic oxide, or by the fumes of charcoal, invariably' leads, before death 

 occurs, to those changes which are characteristic of carbonic-oxide blood, be- 

 coming quite irreducible. Sorby's microspectroscope answers admirably for these 

 investigations ; and the solution which Dr. Gamgee recommends for this special 

 process is one containing tin, in preference either to sidphide of ammonium or 

 protoxide of iron. Sixthly, whilst it residts from Dr. Gamgee's researches that no 

 gas or poisonous agent exerts the peculiar action on blood colouring-matter which 

 is pro'luced by CO, it is specially to be noticed that prussic acid and laughinn^- 

 gas, which hare the power of rendering blood florid, do not prevent its being 

 reduced. Thus the question which Claude Bernard suggested some j'ears ago, as 

 to whether prussic acid exerts on blood a similar action to that of carbonic oxide, 

 is answered in the negative. 



On the Sources of the Fat of the Animal Body. By Drs. J. H. Gilbert, 

 Ph.D., F.B.S., F.C.S., and J. B. Lawes, F.B.S., F.C.S* 



On the Conditions of the Protoplasmic Movements in the Egg of Osseous Fishes. 



By Dr. W. H. Ransom. 



The author reported the results of experiments upon the eggs of Pike and Stickle- 

 backs, with the view of determining the essential and modifj-ing conditions of the 

 movements seen in their yelks. 



He related tlie effects of various poisons, of increasing or reducing the tempera- 

 ture, of the application of galvanic currents and deprivation of oxygen. The chief 

 conclusion attempted to be drawn was that these movements demand the presence 

 of oxygen in the surromiding medium as an essential condition of their existence. 



On the Comparative Vitality of the Jewish aiid Christian Races. 



Bif Dr. ElCHAEBSON. 



Physiological Demonstrations of Local Insensibility. By Dr, Eichardson. 



On tJie Presence of Ammonia and its Homologues in the Blood. 

 By ^Y. L. Scott. 



On the Physiological Action of Medicines. 

 By William Sharp, M.D., F.B.S., F.G.S. 



The subject of this paper was the action of medicines when taken in health. 



That drugs ought to be experimented upon by liealthy persons was suggested by 

 Haller; the importance of such experiments, and their necessity, was unanimously 

 agreed upon by the Medical Section of the Scientific Congress at Strasburg in 1842. 

 The memorial upon this subject from the British Association last year (Birming- 

 ham Meeting, 1865) to the General Medical Council, presented by Prof. Aclaud, 

 May 17, 18G6, was referred to. 



Experiments already made by Antony Stoerlc (in Vienna) upon himself with 

 aconite, colchicum, &c., from 1742 to l762 ; by Samuel Hahnemann with many 



* Fide Transions of the Sections, p. 41. 



