108 REPORT— 1865. 



about half a pint of beer daily. Describing the post-mortem appearances, Dr. H. 

 said the organs were all sound and health)', and the cause of death was accumula- 

 tion in the bronchial tubes. The costal cartilages were as soft as in early life. The 

 same thing was noticed in the post-mortem examination of old Parr by Dr. Harvey, 

 and this was thought by him and by subsequent writers to be a condition peculiar 

 to old Parr, but he, Dr. Humphry, had met with the same in many examinations of 

 aged people. It is well known that after the middle period of life the costal car- 

 tilages often lose their elasticity, and become more or less calcified. Dr. Humphry 

 is inclined to regard this change as not so much an attendant upon age as upon an 

 unhealthy condition of the system. He considers it, in short, to be a morbid rather 

 than a senile change, and intimated that some aid to prognosis respecting longevity 

 might be furnished by an examination of the walls of the chest, a deficiency in 

 their elasticity being an indication of commencing failure of the nutritive functions. 

 The walls of the skull were unusually thick and heavy, the skull weighing 27| 

 oimces, or at least six ounces more than the average of adult skulls. In singular 

 contrast with the condition of the skull was the state of the femur, which was fra- 

 gile, porous, and light, weighing only five ounces. Dr. Humphry pointed out this 

 as an anomaly, that when the muscles and bones of the body generally had become 

 weak and less able to carry weight, the weight to be carried should be increased by 

 the increased thickness and heaviness of the skull. The only other change noticed 

 by Dr. Humphry was the depression of the head of the femur, the angle formed by 

 the neck with the shaft being only 100°. He had often found it as low as 1 10° in 

 old persons. In the adult it is usually from 125° to 130°. 



On the Vascular Arrangements of the Cornea. By Dr. W. H. Lightbodt. 



In this paper the cornea was shown to be non-vascular, except at its extreme 

 margin, even during foetal life, the capillaries ending in loops. The circular venous 

 sinus of Schlemm was described as occurring about the middle thickness of the 

 junction of the cornea and sclerotic, not at the point of division of the posterior 

 elastic lamina, where it usually is said to be. Certain very delicate membranous 

 sheaths were described, surrounding the capillaries of the cornea of many if not of 

 all animals, in some, as the sheep, containing, in addition to the blood-vessel, cor- 

 puscles identical in appearance with lymph-corpuscles : also large trunks, not con- 

 taining blood-vessels, but having the corpuscles in them, were shown leading from 

 the cornea into the sclerotic. The opinion was put forth that these sheaths and 

 trunks are really lymphatics, and it was supported by the recently-published dis- 

 covery of Professor His, viz., that the vessels of the brain and spinal cord are sur- 

 rounded by sheaths capable of being injected, and from Avhich the lymphatics of 

 the membranes of these organs may also be injected. 



On the Development of the Vascular System of the Foetus in the Vertebrata, 

 with the view to determine the true course of the Circulation through the 

 Veins and Arteries of the Human Foetus in utero. By Prof. Hacdoxald. 



The early stages of embryonic or foetal development have long been well ex- 

 hibited by the phenomena of the incubated egg of the domestic poultry ; on the 

 present occasion the same field will be referred to in tracing the growth of the 

 vascular system. 



Having shown that the rudimentary heart of the embryo is formed by bending 

 a tube in the vascular area between the serous and mucous layer, it first appears 

 as a sacculated cone lying in front of the head of the embryo. From the lower 

 part, on the right side, a vein protrudes passing upwards to the sinus tenninalis, from 

 which the blood filtrates through the capillary area of the blastoderm, forming the 

 blastoderm arteries which enter the embryo, pouring the aerated blood on each side 

 into aortas. The aorta on each side of the chorda centralis terminates in four 

 branches ; 1st, to the heart for its growth ; 2nd, to the submaxillary region for the 

 growth of the lungs, and possibly the subclavian ; 3rd, the external carotid and 

 facial arteries ; and 4th, the terminal or internal carotid for the development of the 

 brain. The blood then returns to the atrium cordis by the two veins which enter 

 on the left side. After the ovule arrives at the uterus, the fiocculi of the shaggy 



