548 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION I. 



Biological Laboratory has not confirmed the general theory above outlined. 

 Numerous observations made on the active gas glands and retia of the pollack, 

 conger, mullet, and other fishes have apparently disproved the suppositions that 

 the gas gland cells form intracellular gas bubbles, that a lysin is secreted to effect 

 haemolysis in the rete capillaries, and that oxyhemoglobin is absorbed by the 

 gas gland cells. The obvious appearances of haemolysis occasionally to be seen 

 in sections of the capillaries of the gas gland and rete (figured by Bykowski and 

 Nusbaum and the author) are difficult to explain (the fixation of the material 

 being good), but in view of the recent observations referred to, cannot at pre- 

 sent be relied upon as evidence of a natural process. The whole subject of the 

 physiology of the gas gland is in urgent need of extended inquiry. 



3. An Attempt to obtain Photographic Records of the Emigration of 

 Leucocytes. By W. W. Waller. 



4. The Carbon Dioxide Output during Decerebrate Rigidity. 

 By H. E. Roaf, D.Sc. 



The object of these investigations was to determine whether the rigidity of 

 the muscles produced by removal of the cerebrum was accompanied by an in- 

 creased production of carbon dioxide. The animals were anaesthetised and decere- 

 brated. After the removal of the brain, artificial respiration was maintained, 

 and the weight of carbon dioxide excreted was measured. The external con- 

 ditions were maintained as constant as possible. Each experiment was divided 

 into two periods, the first with the muscles rigid, and the second after removal 

 of the rigidity. 



The internal temperature and weight of the animal affect the amount of 

 carbon dioxide given off. A fairly constant figure is obtained by the use of the 

 following expression : — 



40-t 

 Carbon dioxido given off x (2*5) 10 



v' weight 



Excluding those experiments in which muscular movements occurred the 

 average figure for twenty-three experiments, by the above expression, is 1*705 

 + 0"026. Abolishing the rigidity by intravenous injection of curare gives as an 

 average for eleven experiments 1'669 + O049. This is a lowering of 0-036, 

 but the probable error of the difference is 0'056. Therefore abolishing the 

 rigidity by curare does not diminish the output of carbon dioxide. 



Cutting the motor nerves to all four of the limbs removes the rigidity, but 

 does not appreciably lower the carbon dioxide output. 



The total carbon dioxide production from the limbs is not greater than the 

 carbon dioxide output of the same weight of resting muscle as given by Bar- 

 croft. 1 Decapitation and cutting of the spinal cord both cause a decrease in the 

 amount of carbon dioxide excreted. Cutting the splanchnic nerves does not 

 lower the output of carbon dioxide. Therefore the muscular rigidity, produced 

 by decerebration, differs from ordinary muscular contraction, because it does not 

 involve an increase in the output of carbon dioxide. Cutting the cord does 

 lower the carbon dioxide output. This, as shown above, does not seem to be 

 due either to removal of muscular rigidity or to lowering of the blood pressure. 



5. The Claim of Sir Charles Bell to the Discovery of Motor and Sensory 

 Nerve Channels (an Examination of the Original Documents of 1811 

 to 1830). By Augustus D. Waller, M.D., F.R.S. — See Reports, 

 p. 287. 



1 Erget. d. Physiol., vol. vii., 1906. 



